


Like Poison From a Wound

by Mysecretfanmoments



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Annie's POV, Coercion, Completely inaccurate guessing related to titan shifters, F/M, Implied/Referenced Torture, Manga Spoilers, POV Third Person Limited, Self-Loathing, unprotected sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-23
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 06:39:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1678457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mysecretfanmoments/pseuds/Mysecretfanmoments
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Annie wakes up from her crystal slumber. Armin tries to win her over to humanity's side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Compulsion

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: extremely brittle Annie, self-loathing, etc. Pretty much what you'd expect from someone waking up after betraying all her friends.
> 
> Feedback always appreciated!

He was everything.

He wasn’t everything in the way teenagers were expected to be everything to one another. It wasn’t love, not really, because love was a gateway to emotions Annie couldn’t afford to have—but he was the one thing she allowed herself to treasure, and therefore, he was everything.

She couldn’t bring herself to kill him.

It was easy to look down on the others, who mistook insignificant moments of kindness for proof of her benevolence. They looked at her as if they knew what lay beneath her prickly shell: a well of good waiting to be released at a later date. They saw her as one of them, someone who would rise to the challenge when the time came, but they were wrong.

She would not fight _with_ them, after all.

Armin was different. He didn’t make assumptions, and he suffered no delusions where she was concerned. Where others saw self-deprecating humor, he recognized self-loathing. Where others saw harmless laziness, he recognized the signs of depression. He took the time to see her, all of her, without dismissing the ugly parts—but what he saw still seemed to please him. He still smiled when she entered a room.

It was as if he saw something she didn’t, beneath it all. Like one day he’d reveal it all to her in some great trick, and she would find out she’d been a good person all along.

Maybe that was why she couldn’t kill him: she wanted to see him do just that.

When the fight within Sina turned sour, she knew she’d never get the chance to. As the crystal formed around her torso, encasing her heart and lungs and fanning outward to enclose her shoulders, her neck, she spared a thought for him. She had betrayed him now, confirmed that she was responsible for countless deaths, and now he would hate her.

It didn’t matter. It was her responsibility to crack open this world, to penetrate its dark shell and draw out what agonized trace of humanity remained, like poison from a wound—to stamp out all life within the walls.

Only once they were all dead—only then—would the world be rebuilt.

Not by her. She was infected with the same festering disease as everyone else, for all that it took a different shape. The world would be rebuilt by others, by people who didn’t exist yet, who weren’t tainted.

She didn’t think of those people when the crystal took shape around her, though. She didn’t think of hope or the mission or her father’s lessons.

Instead, she thought of him.

 

* * *

 

 

Annie lived in a realm of warm weightlessness, where there were no other people and no responsibilities. Nothing hurt. She didn’t think, didn’t plan, didn’t drift—her existence was void, until the crystal slumber began to come to its end.

Waking from the crystal was like waking up on a winter morning, huddled warm beneath blankets as the world outside shivered. Thoughts were fleeting, rising to the surface of her mind only to sink back down before they could fully form.  

It didn’t last long enough. The fog in her mind cleared, and she found herself not waking but awake, bracing herself for hell. She was in a dank vault, strapped to a bed. Her arms and legs were tied down with thick leather belts, her fingernails cut to the quicks. A gag kept her from biting down on her tongue.

A stranger was looking down at her, peering into her eyes.

“She’s awake,” he called, though Annie couldn’t see who he was talking to. She craned her neck to see the rest of the room. There was nothing in here save a nightstand and a few stools, illuminated by a large lantern hanging from a hook set in the ceiling. There were no bars locking her in, just a heavy-looking door that opened to reveal another stranger—a woman, this time.

“I’m going to take off your gag,” the woman said, approaching the bed, “If you try to bite your tongue, I’ll be forced to put it back on more permanently. Given the depth of this room, your transformation would only make the whole place cave in on top of you.”

Annie laid her head back against the mattress—there was no pillow—and closed her eyes. She didn’t want the gag taken off. It wouldn’t make any difference. She wondered, vaguely, whether Bertholdt and Reiner were still alive. If she was still in captivity, did that mean they were dead?

“I’ve been waiting for this a long time,” the woman said as she took off the gag. “You really had us fooled, you know that?”

Her words were enough to make Annie open her eyes again, examining her. She didn’t wear a uniform jacket, but perhaps her face was familiar after all. It was—yes.

One of her former military police teammates. Clutch, or something.

She was older now, her face less rounded and her hair longer, tied behind her head, but she still had a face that annoyed Annie. Most people had faces that annoyed Annie, but Clutch’s was worse than most.

“Remember me?” Clutch asked as she finished with the gag. “We joined the military police together. My name’s Hitch.”

Oh, Hitch—right. Close enough.

Annie said nothing.

“Let’s talk, hm? Let’s start small. Why were you trying to kidnap the Jaeger boy?”

They _still_ hadn’t figured that out? From Hitch’s face, Annie guessed she’d been in the crystal for at least five years now—about as long as she’d intended, though crystallization was no exact science. She’d expected things to be decided by now, one way or another. Five years had seemed like an eternity to Annie when she chose the approximate length of her sleep. It had seemed like a logical decision at the time, but perhaps it was weakness—an attachment to the people she knew—that caused her to choose such a short period to lie in waiting.

“Won’t talk, hm? I can make you talk, you know. I’ve learned a lot since we last saw each other.”

Annie’s guts twisted. She hated pain.

“You don’t look so brave now,” Hitch said, grinning.

“I’m bored,” Annie said. Her voice was rough with disuse, though not five years’ worth. She wondered how long it would be before her body’s functions would resume—before she’d need to eat and drink and empty her bladder. She hoped it would take a while; thirst was a potent form of torture. “If you hurt me, I’ll crystallize again.”

“She’s bluffing,” the man behind Hitch said. He was older, with glazed-over eyes and a stupid-looking face.

“I’m not,” Annie said, striving for a careless tone. The truth was that she couldn’t crystallize without her titan flesh around her, but it was a truth she’d never speak—not if she valued her skin. “But I don’t want to crystallize again, either.”

Hitch took the bait. “And why’s that?”

“I’m curious,” Annie stated. “If I’m asleep, I won’t know what’s going on. And if I trigger it—well. You see how long that lasts. If I do it wrong it could last even longer.”

The other woman’s lips thinned. She wanted to cut into Annie, Annie could tell—but losing a valuable witness wouldn’t count in her favor, either.

“You fill me in on what’s happening,” Annie said. “Maybe I’ll tell you some of what I know.”

Hitch glared, but there were no more threats of violence. She said she’d consider it.

The gag was back in place shortly after, and Annie was left alone.

She hoped they believed her.

 

* * *

 

 

They didn’t torture her.

That was to say, it wasn’t torture, even if it was humiliating. They had designed some sort of jacket to keep her hands bound to her chest, and her legs were fettered whenever they walked her around the room for exercise. When she needed to use the bedpan, someone else loosened her pants and let her have one hand free to wipe herself off. There were always two people in the room during those times, as if they thought she could fight them with only one arm free. At night—or what she guessed was night—they strapped her down to the bed the way they had that first night. They left her in pitch darkness.

She told herself it wasn’t torture. It could be so much worse.

Hitch told her about some current events, while leaving out others. She said the government had been overthrown, and that a woman named Historia was now queen. Annie guessed that was Christa, though she said nothing. Hitch also said the crazy leaders of the scouting legion were calling the shots, and Annie had no idea whether that worked in her favor or not.

There was no mention of Eren, who was essential to Annie’s cause. No mention of Armin, either, though he was not essential.

She reminded herself of that daily:

Armin Arlert was not essential.

 

* * *

 

 

Annie didn’t know how many days it had been since she’d woken up. Her life was a slow progression of inane questions, embarrassing bathroom breaks, and long hours spent staring into darkness, and it was better if she didn’t keep count.

So she didn’t know how many days there were between her waking up and Armin Arlert walking through the door of her cell, but she knew it had been five years since she had last seen him, and those years had made a difference. The lantern in his hands revealed that much. She watched as he hung it from the hook on the ceiling.

The boy she knew was gone. He was a man now: taller, angular, shoulders thick with muscle, the baby fat in his face gone. His hair was longer, too, tied in a half ponytail behind his head. It was no longer an awkward mop of yellow.

Annie hated it. She hated the man who had taken Armin’s place.

“Long time no see,” he said, and his smile was the same: a little tentative, a lot sweet. She knew it to be false.

“Apparently,” she tried to say. The gag didn’t allow for much enunciation.

“How are you feeling?”

She shrugged, though it was awkward lying down.

Armin approached the bed. “Would you like to sit up?”

She made an affirmative noise.

First he undid the gag, his hands careful, blue eyes intent. She looked away as he undid the belt over her chest, then the one over her stomach. He released her wrists from their restraints a moment later, and she sighed in relief. It was the most freedom she’d had since waking up: her whole upper body free, and only one other person in the room. She wondered how Armin had been allowed to do away with security procedure; no one else undid her restraints alone.

A ploy, probably. Armin was fond of those.

She didn’t look at him as she sat up, stretching sore muscles. Like this, she could get her whole back, and loosen her shoulders. It felt amazing.

“I know you can’t transform here,” Armin said, sitting down on one of the stools. “I’ve told your guards. You should be more comfortable from here on out.”

Her head snapped around. “How could you know a thing like that?”

“You’re not the only titan shifter in the world. We’ve learned a few things.”

She tried not to look too interested, though it was hard. Eren was their hope; if he was still alive, if the coordinate was still known, they might all be saved. “Eren?”

“He’s not the only titan shifter, either.”

Armin was watching her in that measuring way of his, though it looked strange on his grown-up face. He was handsome, she thought, probably greatly admired by younger recruits who didn’t remember him as being weak.

She had never thought him weak, not in the ways that mattered.

“You’re not going to tell me if he’s alive,” she said, letting annoyance slip into her voice. She didn’t think she could play this version of Armin when he held all the cards. Instead she tried to read the truth in his face, wondering how Eren’s death would affect him. Would it break him? Was the man in front of her broken?

There were scars, certainly. Most of them were across his hands and forearms, visible where he’d rolled up his shirt sleeves. His face was mostly untouched. She wondered if there were other scars beneath the straps of the 3D gear, beneath the white military uniform he wore. Imagining his form beneath the clothes sent an unexpected lance of heat through her.

Well. That was new.

“They say you’ll crystallize again if we hurt you,” Armin said, oblivious to her embarrassment. “But this must be torture for you, too. So I wondered why you would endure so much.”

He folded his hands before continuing.

“I don’t think you were telling the truth about crystallizing,” he said, making her stomach roil with nerves. “But I won’t tell them that, because I don’t think you’d crack under pressure. I do think you were telling the truth about being curious. You want Eren, don’t you? You still do.”

“He’s important,” she agreed. The coordinate. The one with the power to control the titans, and to find _it_. She didn’t mind admitting that they wanted him when Armin knew already.

“Why? What is the coordinate? Why is he important?”

She pretended not to hear the question, and he sighed.

“I don’t suppose there’s anything else you want to tell me?”

He expected an apology, maybe, for killing all those people. She wasn’t sorry; they were flies. She’d swatted them.

That was what she told herself, anyway.

She looked up at Armin, at his new body. He was no longer the boy she’d treasured, no longer her everything. She’d been foolish to think he could remain that way, probably, but it made her angry nonetheless, and it made her lash out.

“You think you have the upper hand,” she said. Her voice was flat. “You think that things are looking up because you have your queen, because you have Eren. You’re wrong, Armin. There is no upper hand. Eren is our hope, not yours. One day you’ll realize that.”

He looked at her intently. “How?”

Annie shook her head, knowing she’d failed to scare him. She hadn’t dented his armor, not even a little. She wanted him broken and apologetic. She wanted him as lost as she was, but he wasn’t. He had become the kind of person who stood out—like Eren. The kind of person who kept going when you pushed them down.

“I’ll come see you again soon,” he said, when she refused to answer. “Maybe you’ll tell me more then.”

She’d already told him more than she’d ever told Hitch, but that was no mistake.

Whatever she might tell herself—however much she hated this new, more confident version of Armin—she wanted him to keep coming back.

 

 

Her life got more comfortable after Armin’s visit. One of the guards brought a pillow, and the leather restraints were replaced with one iron manacle that hooked into the wall. With only one wrist restrained, Annie could move around in bed at night and—best of all—work on regaining lost muscle. They brought cold water for her to wash with, and eventually they even sent new clothes to replace the crusty hoodie and uniform pants she’d been wearing since the fight within Sina.

It helped her feel vaguely human—that and the fact that people no longer had to watch her wipe her ass.

Armin visited every day, bringing books. Their conversations were always short and fruitless, for all involved, and the books allowed Armin to prolong the visit. He read to her about oceans and sand seas and mountains. Another ploy, to make her remember him as he was: a bright-eyed trainee with a passion that could set others alight. The problem was that she _did_ remember him, and she remembered he was smart, and dedicated to the cause.

She also remembered that he ought to be angry with her, and he wasn’t.

She couldn’t trust a boy—man—who didn’t get angry.

Despite the lack of progress, the readings didn’t stop, and Annie didn’t mind.  She didn’t let his deepened voice work on her heart strings, didn’t imagine that he was reading to her like a friend might read to a convalescent. She refused to let him dredge up memories of the boy she had come close to loving, and so she did all she could to distract herself from his words.

She became an expert at imagining his clothes off. She would start with the front clasp across his chest, so she could worm her hand under one of the shoulder straps and slide it off. She would run her hands over his chest, feeling his warm skin through his shirt, and he would inhale sharply. She’d slip off the other strap shortly after, and the back brace would fall to the floor with a dull thud.

 _What are you doing?_ he might ask. Or maybe he wouldn’t—the man in front of her couldn’t be a virgin, after all. He would gaze at her knowingly, not moving.

She would continue to undress him.

In her fantasies, he went along with it eventually. He was keen to manipulate, and he’d use anything he had at his disposal, including his body.

She would unzip his uniform pants and release his erection from its confines—he’d be hard already, even though he hadn’t meant for it to happen—and she would stroke along his shaft like she knew what she was doing. Then she’d grab his shoulders and press up against him, straddling him, so he hit her just so—

“Annie?”

“Hm?”

“Are you listening?”

She’d told him flat-out that she wouldn’t listen the first time he’d come down here with those stupid books. “Of course I’m not.”

His erection would be hard and warm against her, and she’d feel it through the material of her pants—

“Why not?” he asked.

“I already know about the outside world,” she said in frustration. “Why would I need you to tell me about it?”

His eyes widened, and for a moment Annie thought she glimpsed the real Armin.

“Tell me, then,” he said. The look on his face stole her breath. It made her chest feel tight with longing for the boy he’d been, the one who hadn’t known what she was.

She flopped back onto the bed with a rattle of chains, frustration running through her. It was all an act, she reminded herself. Even if it made her heart speed up. Even if it made her want to kiss him and tell him anything.

She was his enemy. It was a stroke of luck, really, that the pure boy she’d known was gone.

“Have sex with me,” she said. “I’m bored. You’ve done it by now, right?”

He closed the book he was holding, tilting his head curiously. “What’s your plan? Hold me hostage against the people outside? Tell them you’ll kill me if they don’t let you out?”

She raised an eyebrow, wondering what he was talking about—until the meaning sank in. He thought she was trying to trap him. It was almost enough to make her laugh.

“No plan,” she said to the ceiling. At the very least, she’d made him stop reading.

He made no response, just looked at her curiously, and she couldn’t bring herself to ask a second time. He left soon after.

 

* * *

 

 

“Are you ready?” Armin asked, standing next to her. She was blindfolded, and her hands were tied in front of her, but her feet were free. A walk, he’d promised her. Just down the hall.

She nodded.

There was a sound of a door opening, and a flood of comparatively fresh air. She drank it in greedily.

They walked together, Armin’s hand on her shoulder so she wouldn’t walk into anything. Now and then he turned her, or told her about an uneven section of floor, but for the most part they walked in silence.

It made her longing for the outside world worse, if anything.

The underground complex was built in a square, and from brushing the walls Annie knew the cells were set on the outside of the square. She wasn’t sure whether the center of the square held stairs or an elevator shaft, but she would make a run for it either way.

She knew where the exit was from Armin’s carefully modulated breathing. She knew there were no guards on this floor, not right now; whatever Armin influence had—and it seemed like he had a significant amount—he had used it to give her privacy.

This was her chance.

When they’d made their way around the rectangular passage several times, she made her move. She swung her bound hands up under Armin’s jaw, knocking him away, then dashed in the other direction, reaching for her blindfold as she ran.

The hallway was poorly lit, but it looked bright to her dark-adjusted eyes. She headed for the exit, and it felt so good to run that she almost cried in relief.

She didn’t cry, though. Instead, she burst through the door to the exit, catching a glimpse of an elevator shaft before half a dozen guards blocked her vision. They jumped on her, forcing her to the ground.

She ignored the pain, the pressure, how hard it was to breath. She bit into her thumb hard, her mind clear with purpose, thinking of the shaft and how to fit in it—but nothing happened.

This time, tears really did reach her eyes. Armin had planned this. It would have been clear from the start if she hadn’t been so blindly optimistic, so desperate to get out. Had it been a test? A cruel joke? If it was a test, she’d failed.

The warmth and the tangle of bodies overwhelmed her at last, and she barely struggled as her arms were wrenched. Her previous bindings were loosened, and her hands were tied behind her back instead.

A lot more sensible than tying them in front. She should have _known_ , damn it.

They marched her back to her room without the blindfold, done with the pretense that it mattered what she saw, and she schooled her expression. Her eyes were no longer threatening to spill over when she saw Armin rubbing his jaw outside her cell. He looked almost apologetic when she bared her teeth at him.

She wasn’t angry at him, really. She was angry at herself, for being so easy to manipulate. It was the crystal sleep, the inactivity, the lack of knowledge—it was hard to reach her center here. They treated her like a caged animal, and so she became one.

She would have to remember what she was, next time.

 

 

“I still don’t think you’re a bad person.”

Annie jerked up in bed, gasping. There was someone in her room, sitting beside her bed in the pitch darkness.

“You’ve done bad things. But I know you had a reason.”

Annie held up her blanket, as if it could protect her. When had he snuck in? Why was he sitting in the dark?

“I know you believe that reason,” Armin continued. Would he ever stop talking? “But I’d like you to consider that you may have been lied to.”

“You think I haven’t considered that?”

“I think you think you’ve considered it.”

She lay back in bed. “No reason to lie.”

“You can’t say that without knowing their motivations, and you can’t know their motivations. Not at this point in time. You’re a piece in their game.”

“And you want me to be a piece in yours?” she asked sardonically.

“I care about you. It’s more than you can say for them.”

Warmth bubbled in her stomach at his words. She ignored it, remembering her father instead. What would he say, if he could see her now?

That she should have climbed that wall faster, probably.

Armin didn’t know who “they” was; he was guessing blindly, hoping something would resonate. He couldn’t understand that the end of all human life was an end none of them really wanted. It was the rebirth that was important, and they wouldn’t be present for that.

“Have you learned where titans come from?” she asked, knowing it was a bad idea. She was going to tell him things, even though her safekeeping relied on her not telling him things; she would find herself missing a head if she ran out of things to say.

“Humans. Yes.”

“Does it strike you as odd?”

“Not really. I mean, no odder than them suddenly appearing out of nowhere. In a way it makes more sense, though science can’t explain it.”

“A disease, then?”

She heard him tap his fingers against something. “Diseases spread. They have traceable routes of transmission.” His voice made it clear no routes of transmission had been found.

“And they have incubation periods,” she said.

“You’re saying we’ll all be titans soon?”

“I’m saying we all have the potential to become titans. Only a select few of us have the ability to shift back, and that’s a dying art.”

“It can be learned?”

“No.”

She really was telling him everything tonight.

“Annie…”

He sounded tired. It was the first time he’d sounded tired, and between the darkness and the weight in his voice, she was tempted to tell him more. She was tired, too; tired of doubting him, tired of not knowing what the future held. Reiner had it in him to be brave, but she didn’t. She wanted to give up and leave the worrying to others.

“I should let you get back to sleep,” Armin said. His statement was followed by the scrape of chair legs, closer than Annie had expected, and she found herself reaching for him. Her fingers encountered the soft, worn cotton of a shirt—not the crisp white uniform one he usually wore. Had he come here straight from bed?

He caught her wrist. It was in self-defense, but she couldn’t help the shiver that went through her at his touch. “What is it, Annie?”

“What do you hope to accomplish?”

“To get outside the walls. You know that.”

“We can help,” she said, somewhat desperately. “Give us Eren. We can leave you in peace.”

“Forever?”

“For a long time.”

He sighed heavily. “Even if that was possible… I don’t have that kind of authority, Annie.”

 _Stop saying my name like that_ , she thought, hating the way he made it sound all soft around the edges, like something precious or fragile. He knew she was neither.

“We’d help him kill titans,” Annie said. “Outside the walls. We’re the only ones who can keep him safe. You’d have years to—to live peacefully.”

Provided the ape titan didn’t visit.

“I have a different idea,” Armin said. “You help us. You fight with us against the titans. You give up on your mission.”

“That’s not a possibility—”

“You _think_ it’s not a possibility. You’ve been told—something. Some hopeless version of the truth. That we’re all infected, maybe? It would make sense, then, why you don’t feel much remorse for killing. What I can’t figure out is whether you brought down the walls to kill people or to get Eren. If it was the former, why stop there? Why not push through to Sina?”

 _Because we need you to distract them_ , she thought. _We cull the titan herd until it’s manageable. Then we take down the walls and bring the ape titan back with us._

It seemed an impossibly large task while she was chained to the wall of a cell deep beneath the ground. The darkness didn’t help; it made her feel like she was already entombed, her days on the earth over. It scared her.

She reached for Armin with her free hand, catching the hand that held her wrist. She didn’t twist, or dig in her nails, reaching instead for his pulse point. His heart beat reassuringly against her fingertips, a little fast.

“There’s no future for any of us,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want it this way, either.”

She drew back from him, trying to retract both hands, but he didn’t let her.

“Annie, please. Your version of the future has no hope. I know you believe there is none, but we’ll figure something else out. _Please_.”

He was holding both her hands now. She wished she could see his face, but she’d have to make do with her imagination. She knew what expression he wore, even in the dark: the hopeful one that tore her apart. It was strange to imagine it transposed onto his older face.

“Grisha Jaeger went against the people from your village, didn’t he?” he said, and she recognized a last-ditch attempt at convincing her when she heard one. “He was a smart man—there’s no denying that. If he saw a flaw in the plan, there’s a good chance there was one. You could help us, like he tried to. Please, Annie.”

Her hands shook, even in his grip. “Help you?” she whispered. “I know you’ll kill me, Armin.”

“Kill you? What are you talking about?”

“You could never trust me. Once my usefulness is void, I’m dead.”

His exhale was loud, surprised. “ _That’s_ what you think? Annie, no—we want you on our side. I’ll prove it to you, that your truth is wrong. And once you know that, we can trust you completely. _I_ can trust you completely.”

She’d killed. She’d killed _so many_. And if she changed her mind now, those kills would count. They wouldn’t be hapless flies she’d swatted.

“Help us. Make up for what you did. I’ll get you your new truth, I promise.”

He gripped tight, just once, before letting go of her hands.

She was left alone once more, but not fully in the dark. Maybe.

She was so desperate for hope, she wanted to believe him. Believe _in_ him.

 

* * *

 

 

Annie was lying on her side in bed, staring at the pictures in one of the books Armin had given her. The door opened, and she spared a glance for one of the guards who brought her food. He scowled at her.

She turned back to the book, wondering if she ought to believe that mountains could spew fire and smoke. She wanted to talk to Armin about it. The book showed a mountain before and after one of these “eruptions”, and the after picture had the top of it blown off. If they all did that, surely there would be no mountains left by the time they—

Hands clamped down on her ankles, and another pair grabbed her free wrist roughly. The book dropped, and she was turned onto her stomach, her arm twisted behind her.

A knee came to rest in the small of her back, the bed dipping with additional weight.

“I don’t think you can turn into that rock anymore,” a male voice whispered into her neck. The guard who’d scowled.

Cold fear slicked her armpits, dried her throat.

 _You won’t crack under pressure_ , Armin had said, and he’d been right. She’d lived and breathed pain during her training—but the thought of enduring it lying down made her stomach twist sickly. Her father had always made sure she was standing up.

“Tell us,” the woman holding her feet hissed. Hitch?

“Tell you what?” Annie asked, keeping her voice flat.

“Everything,” the man said, digging his knee in harder.

She let out a sigh and waited for worse. It came in the form of her arm being twisted further out of its usual range, until she was sure something would pop soon. Tears of pain gathered in her eyes.

“You think your champion will save you? He’s not here. He won’t be coming.”

Annie laughed at the title, at the thought that Armin was her champion. It was a long laugh—the kind that tended to creep Reiner and Bertl out, seemingly devoid of hope or sanity.

The hold on her arm loosened.

“You think he’s my _champion_?” she said at last. All her frustration poured out of her, all the fear she’d felt, all the times she’d known she was being manipulated. The times she’d hated herself for believing him—the way she hated herself for _still_ wanting to believe him. “You’re nothing compared to him. I’d take your interrogation over his any day. _Please_ tell your superiors you’re taking over. I’ll look forward to our sessions.”

“He comes to visit you at night,” Hitch said, but there was hesitation in her voice. Annie wondered at the suggestion that it had happened more than once, but she didn’t question it. “He’s sweet on you. Going easy on you.”

“You think we’re screwing?” Annie asked. “I wish. Now there’s nice way to spend an evening.”

“Shut up!” the man yelled. “It doesn’t matter. He’s not coming. _What is your purpose within the walls_?”

He clenched her hair in his fist, pulling at it. Annie stopped herself from flinching—it was important they thought she couldn’t feel pain, so the threat of her bluff still stood—and wondered how many lies she could tell convincingly.

 

* * *

 

 

“You should have screamed,” Armin said, pacing. His face was set in a mask of disgust, his sleeves rolled up. “Someone else would have heard. Would have come running.”

He’d found her lying weakly in bed, some hair ripped out, one shoulder dislocated, cuts across her arms and legs. They hadn’t healed; her titan abilities seemed to be gone completely, but the fact that Armin didn’t comment on it made her think it was expected. He attended to her wounds silently, his jaw tight.

There was probably something in the food. That explained a lot, and if she had the energy to hate him for it she might have.

She was so tired.

But Armin looked like he was waiting for a response, so she shrugged her unhurt shoulder. He had set the other one, leaving a dull ache and full range of motion.

“I’m sorry, Annie,” he said. He was laying it on a bit thick with the concern. Had he sent the guards who’d hurt her, to break her down? To make her trust him? “I thought I could trust the people here.”

She shrugged again. “They’re afraid to do much. Just in case I’m not bluffing.”

“And are you?”

“You think I am, don’t you?”

“That’s just my theory. I can’t be sure. _Can_ you do it?”

Annie glared. She wouldn’t give him confirmation on anything, not when it might mean more attempts at torture.

Armin looked surprised for a moment before he smoothed his expression. “You… really don’t trust me, do you?”

She shook her head mutely.

“What if Eren promised? Or Mikasa?”

“They’re still alive?”

Armin nodded.

Her body felt shaky. For weeks she’d tried to manipulate the information out of him, and now he was giving it up for free? Just like that?

“I wouldn’t trust them because they’d kill me the moment they saw me again.”

He huffed out a breath, before touching his hand to his lips thoughtfully. “Probably true, although Eren hates Reiner and Bertholdt more than he hates you.”

Annie’s guts clenched at the mention of her former companions. It must have been hard for them, when the other trainees found out about them. Her disgust for them—her disgust for all three of them—precluded any feelings of affection, but she could empathize.

“Still want me to fight for your side?” Annie asked, thinking of Eren’s hatred. It would be hard to fight alongside him, that was for sure. Armin regarded her seriously.

“I do. It’s the one way to make them stop hating you.”

“And you?”

“Me what?”

“Will it make you stop hating me?”

 _He’ll tell you anything_ , Annie reminded herself, expecting him to deny hating her, but his response surprised her.

“I’ll still hold you accountable,” he said. “You could have helped us, told us—you could have decided we were worth telling. But I realize you were trying to do good. You must have been; I can’t believe you hurt people just because you felt like it. I can’t think that way forever, though. If I’m not successful—if I can’t get you over to our side—you’ll be my enemy.”

There was a lump in Annie’s throat. She tried to think of the mission, but all she could think of was being Armin’s enemy. She imagined walking up to the executioner’s block, her eyes meeting his one last time. Seeing disgust.

Or would the scouting legion keep her here, for testing? Would he visit, then, with cold eyes and tight lips?

She covered her face with her hands, drawing her legs up, pressing into the wall behind her as if she might disappear entirely. This underground cell wasn’t life. So what if she jeopardized the mission? Couldn’t she find her own way to go about it? If everyone was doomed to transition eventually anyway, couldn’t she wait until then? Why speed the process up with killing?

Grisha had placed his trust in humanity—in his son. Following in his footsteps would mean she could never return to her father, to her home, but did she want to? For so long the thought of seeing pride in her father’s eyes had kept her going—a fantasy where he grinned and ruffled her hair when he saw her again, his voice rough with affection—but now she wasn’t sure anymore.

Her father loved her, but maybe—maybe not for the right reasons.

“Annie?”

Of course, she couldn’t trust Armin either. He made it sound like they’d let her fight for them, but when it came down to it they were likely to pump her for information and kill her, or let her rot down here while they did tests on her body.

She couldn’t trust anyone.

The bed dipped under Armin’s weight as he hopped up to sit next to her, making Annie jump. This was the closest he’d ever come with her unrestrained.

“What are you doing?” she asked. If she wanted, she could jump him; she had a fair chance of knocking him out if she used the manacle to strike his head. Was he that confident in his new body? Or did he think her wounds would slow her?

He looked at her, and she noticed again how he’d grown. Seated next to one another, backs to the wall, her eyes were only level with his chin.

“You’re considering it, aren’t you?” he asked.

“That’s what you want, right?”

“It is.”

Betray her people. Betray the cause.

She wasn’t a stranger to betrayal, though. Her father had made sure of that.

“What do I get out of it?”

He looked surprised. “What, besides out?”

“I can’t trust that. I don’t think you’ll let me out, and if you do, I foresee a lot of harassment, and people trying to kill me, and people telling me to feel guilty. So what’s in it for me, besides more pain?”

He sighed. “What do you want to be in it for you, Annie?”

“Have sex with me,” she said, her voice and her stare as flat as she could make them. She wasn’t quite prepared for him to snort loudly and surge forward, clutching his hands over his mouth as if she’d said something hilarious.

“Wait,” he said, after a long look at her face. He sat back slowly. “You were serious? That time?”

She allowed a small smile, mortified as she was. “I’m not likely to experience it, otherwise.”

His expression turned thoughtful. “And you think this is the only way? Convincing me? You think you have to strike a bargain for it?”

She folded her arms. “Yes or no, Arlert.”

Suddenly—unexpectedly—he blushed. She stared in amazement. She’d forgotten he could still be embarrassed, and the sight of it made her stomach twist almost pleasantly.

“I, ah—well. I think you have the wrong idea.”

It was like a punch in the gut. She’d been expecting it, but at the same time it hurt to hear, absurd as the request was.

“No,” he amended, seeing her face. “Not that. I mean—I think… ah. The kind of sex you probably have in mind—I haven’t done that before. It’s not exactly encouraged in the legion.”

He looked away, beet red.

Hope unfurled in her chest. It wasn’t a rejection of her terms, after all. The idea that he wasn’t as experienced as she’d imagined didn’t matter, as long as he was still willing to screw her. Why she should care so much about being with him physically, she didn’t know. It had started as a distraction, imagining him like that—but it had changed into something else. When she touched herself thinking about him, she forgot that he resented her, forgot the real Armin.

It would be so nice, to have him forget with her. Maybe he could. He did a good job of pretending to stand her, most days.

That was why it had to be him. He was the only one who could convince her—

Who was she kidding? It had to be him, period. It always had to be him, for her.

“So is that a yes?” she asked. “Or a no?”

He buried his face in his hands. “I don’t know. Let me think about it.” His face appeared a moment later, the blush already fading. “You really mean it, though? That you’ll--?”

“I’m considering it,” she said. In truth, she’d more or less decided—but she would get what she could out of the bargain.

He left soon after, still embarrassed in a way that reminded Annie of his younger self. The fact that he’d never done it before was a disappointment—in her fantasies he always took charge, maneuvering her under him, his lips and hands bruising—but she’d be satisfied with anything. At heart, she wanted to be close to someone. Once.

To be with him while he was still pretending to be within her reach.

 

* * *

 

 

The next day, Armin didn’t visit. It wasn’t unusual for him to stay away for a day at a time, but that day passed, and then another.

Two days in a row was rare. Someone else took off her bandages, and the skin beneath them was healed.

She wondered how long it took full humans to heal. The same amount of time? Longer?

Time passed slowly. She was considering sleep at the end of the second day when Armin came to her in the pitch darkness, the way he had that night. He said nothing, for a time, but she knew she had heard the door open—had seen the dim hallway behind him.

It was him, and yet—she wanted to make sure. Armin could have picked a lookalike. It wasn’t probable, but it was possible.

“Marco’s gear,” she said, trying not to let her voice tremble. “What was the most obvious marking?”

He let out a breath. Maybe he’d expected to find her asleep. Maybe he wasn’t Armin at all, and readying some excuse for not knowing.

“The long V,” he said. “On the left scabbard.”

Annie’s heart thudded painfully. It was him. He was here, in the dark, with her.

“You took your time,” she said. Vaguely, she wondered if maybe he’d found another person, so his first time like this wouldn’t be with her. Was there someone in his life? She hadn’t even considered the possibility before.

He approached the bed, saying nothing. She drew up her legs, and the bed dipped a moment later. Annie reached, and Armin reached back. Her breath caught.

A part of her wanted to backtrack, to tell him he didn’t have to. This was coercion. It was wrong. It was one more sin on top of all the others.

His fingers slid along her wrist, up to her elbow. Her resolve weakened. He moved closer, so she felt his warm breath across her collar. His fingers reached the skin of her neck, where her pulse thudded.

Her resolve was gone.

 _I love you, Armin_.

It was on the tip of her tongue, but if she loved him she wouldn’t make him do this. She loved selfishly, and was it ever love, if it was selfish?

“Annie,” he whispered. He managed to make it sound like a greeting, a sigh. His acting was top-notch; she gave him that.

She let out a shuddering sigh.

Armin’s head bumped hers. He shifted, and their mouths met.

Her first kiss.

It was hard to breathe with her chest so constricted, but it wasn’t hard to move her mouth against his. Her hands came up to hold his face, her fingers sliding into his soft hair. It was tied back the way it always was, bangs covering his forehead, and a part of her bemoaned the lack of light. She wished she could see him, enjoy him. She wished she could look forward to seeing his face as he held her close, as he found his release—but perhaps this way he could imagine someone else, and she couldn’t resent him for that.

His hand moved to cup the back of her neck, his mouth forceful. His tongue drove into her mouth, causing heat to blossom in her chest. He wasn’t gentle, the way she’d feared he would be. If he was gentle, the pretense would be too obvious; she needed him to be rough.

His hands grasped the blanket, pulling it back so it was no longer between them. She slid down onto the bed, and with her legs free she was able to place them on either side of him, to wrap them around his hips and pull him into her.

There: his heat, his weight. She looped the chain around her wrist and rolled them, using the chain as an anchor so they didn’t move past the edge of the bed. She ended up on top, pressing down against him. Her fingers found the buttons of his shirt, her mouth still on his.

Every moment she expected him to say no, to stop her, but there was no sign of hesitation. His hands were hot on her thighs, and his lips met hers with enthusiasm—she could feel him pushing up against her, holding the contact.

She sat up briefly, to open up his shirt when all the buttons were undone. Armin let his head fall back against the pillow as she ran her fingers over his chest, feeling the bumps and ridges of scars, the calluses where maneuver gear had chafed for years.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Armin said, sounding almost clinical about it. His erratic breathing was the only sign that he wasn’t a scientist observing aberrant behavior. She laughed, just a little.

“Neither can I.”

He caught her wrist, the free one, holding it still against his chest. “We can’t—you know. Risk anything.”

“What?” What did he mean? “You think I’ll tell?”

“Not you. Your body.”

For a moment Annie was confused—was he worried about leaving hickeys?—but then she caught on. “Oh. Pregnancy.”

A rustle indicated a nod of his head against the pillow.

“You don’t have to worry about that, with me.”

“Oh?”

She sighed, wishing he’d conceal his interest better. This wasn’t the time to explain about her overactive immune system, how hard it was for female shifters to conceive. Close to impossible unless they were trying—and one transformation would undo whatever life had formed.

“Trust me?” she said tentatively. That might not be good enough for him—he might think she was trying to entrap him. “I don’t—I wouldn’t bring a child into this world, not even if it meant my freedom. I promise.”

He pulled at the wrist he held, rolling so she was under him again. He brushed the hair back from her face.

“Then trust me,” he said. “If you help us, you’ll have your freedom. _I_ promise.”

Her throat was tight.

“Do you believe me?”

 _No_ , she thought, but she didn’t say it. She touched his cheek. “Yes.”

His mouth came down on hers, and her hand fisted in his shirt’s starched collar, holding him close. Tears stung her eyes, though she wasn’t sure what caused them: the comfort of his weight on her, maybe, or the sincerity in his voice as he promised her freedom.

She blinked them back. For one night, she was allowed to pretend he was hers. She wouldn’t waste it.

His fingers tugged at the bottom of her shirt, causing her breath to catch. Somehow, she hadn’t expected him to be quite so… _eager_ for her. Not that she was complaining.

She raised herself up so he could pull up the shirt, cold air ghosting over the skin he exposed. Armin pushed her shirt up onto the chain, out of their way, then bent down over her. His partially-clothed chest brushed against her nipples, making her bite her lip. When his teeth grazed her jawline, she bit down harder, a helpless noise forming in the back of her throat.

He kissed her neck lightly before latching on, sucking at the sensitive skin there.

“Ah—” she breathed, her legs twitching in response. She wanted him _there_ , between her legs, where she pulsed with pleasure and longing. She needed him.

Her legs hooked around his hips, drawing him down against her, and she felt him then: right where she needed him, his erection pressing against her. He rolled his hips, and she gasped a breath.

She pulled at his open shirt, trying to get it off him. She wanted all of him against all of her, inch by inch, to make up for the darkness.

The shirt was gone a moment later, and she ran her hands over his shoulders, his back, arching up against his chest. When he noticed what she was doing, he pinned her down roughly. One hand came up between them to palm her breast, his hold firm, his hips still moving against her in sharp thrusts. Her mind went hazy with desire. She wanted him to be driving into her already.

He seemed to share the sentiment, because a moment later he’d moved, and his hands were clumsy on the drawstrings of her pants. It was hard for him because their hips were still joined, but she wasn’t unlocking her legs from around him. She bucked up against him, once, just to see if it would worsen the shaking of his hands, and found that it did.

There was something very gratifying in that.

But then her pants were loose, and he was traveling downward, his mouth marking a trail over her clavicles. His nails were short, cut to the quick, but she felt them digging into her side nonetheless, his grip hard enough to bruise. She bit back a moan when his other hand cupped her breast. He pressed into her, and this time she really did moan. She heard his breath shudder in response.

“Armin, I—”

He was pulling at her waistband. She lifted her hips, losing track of her thoughts. For once, Armin didn’t seem all that interested in what she had to say.

Soon she was naked beneath him, but he wasn’t done with his exploration. His lips traced the curve of her breast while his hand held her ass tightly, making her want to buck up into him—but he held her captive against the mattress. He descended further, and one of his hands came around to press between her legs, all along her slit, reducing her to a gasping mess. Arousal had slickened her folds, and she couldn’t bring herself to be embarrassed.

“Armin—”

His teeth grazed her hip. “Yes?”

“Why—how do you know—?” She couldn’t say it. _How do you know what to do? How do you know what feels so good?_ She didn’t think she could return the favor. Her extensive knowledge of anatomy was limited to causing harm, not pleasure. Overheard conversations and a brief but embarrassing lesson during training could hardly make up the difference. He’d done this much before, she was pretty sure.

He pressed a kiss just above her pubic bone, right where the hair started. “Maybe I’ll tell you.” Another kiss, and his thumb moved to rub against her clit, sending shockwaves through her body. “One day.”

Her legs quivered. He wasn’t trying to be coy, she thought, but the words sounded teasing anyway. She imagined him looking up at her, blue eyes crinkled at the sides, a smile playing about his lips.

 _I love you_ , she thought, and then his hand moved again to make room for his mouth and it became hard to think anything at all. Her legs shook as his tongue flattened out against her, licking upward to her clit. A whimper escaped her.

“Armin—”

He sucked. Her gasp of breath sounded like a sob. Each movement of his mouth reduced her further, and she didn’t know how to tell him what she needed, that this pleasure—mind-blowing as it was—was hollow for her. It made her ache with longing; there was no satisfaction in it.

“Please—”

His finger slipped inside of her, and she gritted her teeth. He was doing it on purpose. Each time she almost managed to say something, he undid her again. A second finger joined the first, and she tensed around them, aching for the sensation of being filled. Fingers weren’t going to be enough—she wanted him closer than that.

Still, when he rutted his fingers into her, mouth still moving on her clit, she couldn’t help gasping with pleasure. A familiar pressure was starting to build, seeming centered along one side of her entrance. He didn’t always hit it, but when he did—oh. She could feel his knuckles pressing against it, blanking her thoughts.

Almost. She was close. She wanted to scream at him to stop it, to thrust into her the way she wanted him to, but the thought of that mounting pressure kept her quiet. Shudders passed through her.

“I’m—” she said, and gave up again. He didn’t increase his pace—just kept going, and between his soft mouth and his curving fingers she came undone, that pressure releasing in unbelievable waves of pleasure, spreading out through her body until it was everywhere, until her muscles pulsed around his fingers.

It wasn’t enough.

“I want—” she gasped “—I want you. Please.”

“Are you su—”

Her hands were at his waist instantly, undoing the buttons of his uniform pants. She got past them, slipping her fingers down to meet the hard length she had felt earlier. A shudder went through Armin when she made contact, and she heard the hitch of his breath.

Sudden worry flooded her, her fingers stilling on the silky skin of his erection. “Is this—all right?”

_You’re coercing him, you idiot. Of course it isn’t all right._

“Don’t stop,” he whispered, and maybe he was playacting but he didn’t sound like he was and she wanted him, she wanted him so much—

He moved forward, just a little, and their foreheads bumped gently. His lips caught hers once more.

She tasted herself on them. Her hand tightened around him, and he gasped into her mouth.

Power sang through her as she realized the way his body jerked in response to her touch. She caressed his length, moving her hand up and down experimentally. His head dropped to rest on her shoulder, and she kicked at the remainder of his clothing.

She loosened her grip, allowing him to crawl out of his pants. There was wetness at the tip of his cock, which she hadn’t expected. Wasn’t that supposed to happen after? She smeared it over the head anyway, hoping it was a good sign.

From his groan, she thought it might be.

“You can back out,” she said, her voice hushed. She swallowed painfully. “If you want—”

“I don’t want to back out.” His voice was ragged. There was something in it, some emotion she couldn’t quite recognize, but she had no time to examine it further. He hovered over her, placing a kiss on her eyebrow, then the corner of her mouth. “Turn over.”

She let him draw her up onto her knees, turning so her back was to him. Her breath was short. She’d seen a raunchy deck of playing cards, once, and she recognized his intent immediately.

“Closer to the wall,” he whispered into her neck, sending shivers down her spine. She moved forward, until she could hold her hands against the cool, flat surface at the head of the bed. She didn’t reach for the wall, though; she reached around for him, catching his hand.

His warm chest met her back. She dragged his palm over her skin, but he needed no help: his hands found their own way from her hips to her chest, callused fingers dragging over her body. One of his hands tightened on her breast; the other rose to caress her neck, her jaw. She pressed back into him, feeling his coarse pubic hair against her ass, his hard length brushing between her spread legs.

She moved her head, trapping his thumb between her teeth and biting gently.

“Is this okay?” Armin asked.

She nodded wordlessly, knowing he’d feel the motion. He was holding her tightly, arms wrapped around her torso, and she reveled in the feeling of being so close to another human being—so close to _him_. He pressed a kiss to her neck. Not for the first time, she wished she could tell what was false and what was real. Was his desire real? Was his gentleness real?

Suddenly, she noticed the strange sensation in her back—the rapid tattoo of Armin’s heart beating against her. He was nervous, she thought. Aroused, yes, but nervous too.

She loosened his grip, turning to face him. His arms went slack as she took control, as if he’d been conforming to a script so far.

Maybe he had been. “Did someone tell you… how? For this part?”

She reached for his cheek, wondering if she’d feel it warm with a blush. He looked away, even though it was dark.

“A mix of sources,” he said. “It’s easier when I’m—not involved. I’ve done all the rest before.”

“You could be the worst partner in the world for this and I’d still want it, you know.” _I’d still want you._ “You don’t have to be nervous.”

“Since you don’t trust any of my promises, I think it’s important how well—”

She placed her fingers over his mouth. “You know, don’t you?”

“Know what?”

“How I feel.” She let her hand rest over his heart, fingers gentle. “About you.”

He dropped his head. “I don’t understand why you would. I—never have. Understood, I mean.”

Not _I don’t_ , but _I don’t understand_. It made her wonder what his impression of her was—as aloof as she’d tried to seem? Strong? Cold?

“You could be the worst partner in the world for this,” she said, again. “And I’d—still want you.” Vulnerability ripped through her. She was done for, but she’d known that already. Her willpower was gone, and her pride was hot on its heels.

She surged up to meet his mouth, her hands holding his face. His lips were slow to respond to her, and there was something fragile in the way he held her, how his hands came to rest on her waist. She imagined it was guilt that slackened his grip, for planning whatever he was planning. She didn’t care.

Annie pushed him down against the mattress, mimicking his motions earlier—laving the skin under his ear with her tongue, trailing kisses, letting her fingers dig into him. She threw her leg over his waist, straddling him, and felt his erection pulse under her in response. So he hadn’t completely lost his fire.

“Stop worrying,” she whispered. “Unless you want to stop?”

The sound he made in response was curiously muffled, and when she felt around for the reason she found he’d thrown his arms over his face.

“I don’t want to stop,” he mumbled. “I should want to. But I don’t.”

She rolled her hips experimentally, letting her wetness coat him. He made a strangled noise.

“Annie—promise.”

“Promise what?”

“I don’t know. Not to kill any more people. To give me a chance to prove—”

“I promise.”

“You do?”

“I do.”

His hand found her thigh, touching gently. She curled her fingers around his, rocking back against him again. His groan filled the small cell.

“Can I?” she asked.

“Is this—how you want it?”

Was it? This was certainly _one_ of the ways she wanted to do this, but if there was just tonight, she wanted—she wanted his warmth all around her. She wanted him to overwhelm all her senses.

She slid down to the mattress in answer, and he made space for her, seeming to understand her intent. She drew him down to her, wrapping her legs around him once more. He let out a shuddering sigh, his face hidden in the crook of her neck.

“I wish I understood,” he said. “We’re just… flies to you, right? Isn’t that what you said once?”

“Not you. Never you.”

She felt him shake his head. “And… not the others, anymore. If I join your side.”

He pressed a kiss to the skin of her neck. “I won’t let you regret it.”

She wasn’t sure that was something he could control, but she didn’t say so, opting to open her legs instead. There was still an ache inside of her, and she didn’t want to take chances. If she waited too long, this opportunity might be taken away from her.

Given his earlier nervousness, she reached down between them, guiding him to her entrance. When he was lined up, she let go and angled her hips up to him.

Armin let out a shuddering sigh. She wanted to say something to reassure him, but she wasn’t sure what. She’d never been good with words.

He pushed forward, and she gasped at the sudden sensation. It was different from his fingers, more of an imposition. She pushed up, trying to take in more of him, but he seemed to be having trouble breathing. Or rather—he wasn’t moving at all.

“Armin—” she started, but he thrusted again, and this time he filled her up completely. Whatever words she’d been forming turned to random sounds, and her legs clenched around him tightly, keeping him there. Her hand fisted in his hair.

He didn’t ask if she was okay, this time. When he began to move, she nearly came apart again. There was pain mixed in with pleasure, and her whole body was attuned to him. She wanted to live and die with his weight on her, his warmth around her, his cock inside of her. His hips moved slowly, never fully retracting—she wouldn’t let him. She kept him close.

“Annie,” he whispered. He rocked forward, his face pressing into her neck. She met him, bucking into him with all her might. He muted his moan against her throat.

The great, mounting movements became faster. They’d been so slow at first—infuriatingly slow—and the change in pace made her groan with the added mix of pain and pleasure. She wanted him ramming into her, but even this was too much. She was coming apart too soon.

But there was no relief, not yet. Armin’s mouth moved against her neck, sucking, his hips rocking. Annie’s back arched and a sobbing noise escaped her. She wanted him so much. She wanted him more than just this once. She wanted the gentle boy she remembered to be hers, to give him all she had, all that he deserved. A bright new life beyond the walls.

She knew that gentle boy was gone, but her body didn’t. It was still filled with the soft feelings that had weakened her in Sina. The soft feelings that would always weaken her.

“Armin,” she whispered. She really was on the edge of crying. The grind of his pubic bone against her, his arms tight around her, his hands in her hair, pulling. “Please.”

How he knew what she wanted was beyond her, but the gasped words unlocked something in him. The rolling waves became sharp thrusts, hard and unforgiving. Her walls clenched around him, and she pushed up against him. She needed more—more pain, more of his harsh, gasping breaths, more of him rubbing up against her.

The pressure mounted, and she bit back a scream. The thrusts didn’t stop, though they became erratic. She grabbed at him, desperate, and then she was screaming his name, coming around him, falling apart and not caring. He was everything. He was everything. He always had been.

She thought she felt him shudder into her, rocking forward brokenly, but the high of her own release made it hard to tell. When his hips stilled, she tightened her arms around him.

She would hold onto him for as long as she could.

“I didn’t pull out,” he said, sounding dazed. He was slumped over her, one hand touching her face gently. “I was going to pull out.”

She laughed a little. He sounded so disappointed in his lack of self-control. “I told you. I won’t get pregnant.”

“Even with your titan abilities suppressed?”

Her hand stilled on his back, where she’d been tracing patterns. “I didn’t think of that,” she said. Then, hesitantly: “But it wouldn’t survive a transformation.”

He groaned. “You have no idea how much I’m looking forward to you explaining _everything_.” He moved his weight onto his elbow. “You are… going to tell us everything, right?”

“As much as I can,” Annie said. It made her stomach twist to think of it, but Armin had given her what she wanted. If she backed out now, he would have more cause to hate her.

She remembered her earlier thoughts. She _did_ want to give him everything, still. Maybe he was older, and a manipulator besides. Maybe that gentle boy was as distant from him as the sun—but this man was all that remained of him.

And there was something in the way he touched her. He’d been rough before, but now his hands were gentle. His lips brushed kisses across her skin as he pulled out and wiped them both off with something. He even held her for a while.

She wanted to savor his presence for as long as she could, but her body was starting to feel heavy with sleep. Vaguely, she felt him sliding her underwear back up her legs, then her pants. He kissed her to wake her a little, and pulled her shirt back down over her head. When he was done, she cuddled in close to his naked body.

He exhaled softly, brushing her hair back from her face. She was dreaming, she thought. He’d held up his side of the bargain. He’d left already. This Armin who stayed with her until she was asleep was a figment of her imagination, dreamt up to quell the aching loneliness inside of her.


	2. Release

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update took a little longer than I meant it to, just like everything to do with this fic. I'm so glad to finally finished it! :') It was supposed to be a 5k oneshot. HAHA. *glares at 20k behemoth two-shot*
> 
> Thank you to everyone who kudo'd/commented/yelled incoherently at me in my tumblr ask box. Your encouragement means a lot to me. Seriously. It's the highlight of my day.

The next day three people came to her room, carrying notebooks. Armin was one of them, and she couldn’t meet his eyes after last night, even though she wanted to. Shame had filled her once she’d woken up, souring the sweet memories— _what had she done_? There was an ache between her legs reminding her constantly of what she’d talked Armin into, and when the group entered she used the feeling to steady herself, to draw her self-loathing up around her like armor. Her insides went cold in preparation for her betrayal. She didn’t recognize the man and woman who arrived alongside Armin, but it didn’t matter. Mostly, they seemed to be there to witness the interrogation; Armin asked the majority of the questions.

Annie talked. She talked until her throat was so dry even water couldn’t provide relief. She told them about the village, the prophecies, the religion beyond the wall. She helped them analyze Reiner and Bertl’s recent movements—their likely goals. She held nothing back, not even out of self-preservation. At the end of the day, she felt scraped raw, and no amount of Armin’s encouraging looks could heal the ache she felt inside.

Between her actions five years ago and her words now, she had betrayed everyone. Her world had crumbled. She had crumbled—but she would help Armin. Help the boy she’d treasured.

When Armin visited the day after the interrogation, she nearly cried at the sight of him. She couldn’t say any more. She’d told them everything. She’d even told them she couldn’t crystallize.

She turned to face the wall, unable to look at him. The scrape of chair legs told her he’d taken a seat next to the bed.

“I’d hoped you wouldn’t mention the crystallizing thing to anyone but me,” he said. “But it helped you gain their trust. It just… makes protecting you a little more difficult.”

“Mm.”

“Annie?”

She closed her eyes tightly. She’d done all he asked. Why was he here again? It was cruel, to see him by lamplight and imagine the things they’d done together, the things they would never do again. Couldn’t he see that?

“I have nothing more to tell you, Armin.” Her voice was hoarse, tired. She felt like she could sleep for days. The ache between her legs from the day before had been replaced by an ache in her throat, and all joy had slipped from her in the wake of her shame. This was the aftermath of joy, and it hurt in a whole new way.

“I didn’t think you did. That’s why I thought I’d talk, this time. But maybe… maybe you’d rather be alone?”

 _What I want doesn’t matter_ , she thought, but she shrugged a shoulder. He sighed.

“I thought I’d catch you up on what’s happening. I told Eren some of what you told me. He’s… confused. But not murderous. Mikasa’s always going to hate you for endangering Eren, but she’s too logical to let that get in the way of a tactical advantage.”

She nodded. Her throat was tight. She couldn’t even feel relief at the fact that he—apparently—meant to have her fight for humanity’s sake after all. Was he going to list everyone? Tell her how much she was despised?

“As for me,” he said, and her whole body tightened. “I think you have the wrong impression.”

“What’s that?”

He sighed. “I don’t hate you, Annie. I tried to, but it never worked. I felt like I should, though. I know the amount of people who died to capture you probably seems insignificant to you because people in the scouting legion die anyway—”

“It doesn’t.”

“What?”

“It’s not insignificant to me.” Not anymore. It couldn’t be. Maybe it never had been.

“I’m glad to hear that.” He paused, seeming to collect his thoughts again. “It’s… not insignificant to me either. But knowing your reasoning helps. I always knew you had a reason. You wanted to save everyone, right?”

She sat up, facing him, her legs hanging off the side of the bed. Looking at him made a strange cocktail of emotions roil in her stomach. She remembered those hands on her, those hips driving into her. She knew she hadn’t dreamt it, even though it seemed impossible now. Wrong.

“I’m not a religious nut,” she said. “I don’t think dying equals saving.”

“But your prophecy states the people living in this world—”

“Will get another chance, yes. Will be reborn in the new world. _Reborn_ means just what it sounds like, though. We carry nothing with us. No memories. The people who died are gone forever, no matter if we succeed in our mission.”

Armin inclined his head. “No matter if _they_ succeed in _their_ mission.”

She smiled sardonically. “ _They_. You can correct my grammar all you like; it won’t convince anyone on the outside.”

“They’re not the ones I’m trying to convince.”

“Yes, you are.”

He sighed. “Not the only ones I’m trying to convince.”

“I’m on your side, Armin. I’ll do whatever you need me to.”

“Humanity’s side?”

“Your side.”

His gaze turned considering. He stood up and started pacing, the fingers of his right hand at his mouth in a contemplative posture. Should she be worried?

She couldn’t quite manage worry. Looking at him still made her feel flushed, and he was wearing his maneuver gear again today.

More to unwrap—not that she ever would, now. It was wrong of her to think it.

“Marry me, then,” he said, shocking her out of her reverie. He stood in front of her with his arms folded.

“What?”

“Marry me. Show everyone where your loyalty lies.”

Thoughts whirled through Annie’s head in a confusing mess. What did he think a sham marriage would prove?

“That would only make them question _your_ loyalty—not show mine.”

“Either way, it would make the people in charge feel like they have leverage. They know there’s no controlling you in titan form.”

“And you’d want them to use you as leverage?”

“I trust you.”

Her heart clenched. “You’re supposed to find me my truth, not sit in the capital waiting for me.”

“You’ll gain their trust, in time.”

She wanted to hit him, to smack him upside the head until he started making sense again. How could anyone think her capable of emotions, knowing all she’d done? He was deluding himself. No one would believe whatever little scheme he had planned.

“It’s ludicrous,” she said shortly. She had no interest in tarnishing his reputation any more than she already had. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on her; all her fantasies had been centered on him using himself to win her to his side, but this she’d never dreamt.

It was nice that he really _did_ mean for her to use her shifting powers for humanity’s sake, but how could he possibly trust her?

“Yes or no, Leonhardt.”

Her eyes narrowed. They were her words, used against her. Looking into Armin’s eyes didn’t help any; he seemed completely serious, his resolve plain in his posture. An unwelcome flutter in her stomach made her flinch.

“I don’t understand—”

He moved forward, grabbing her chin roughly. Her breath caught as he brought his mouth down over hers, taking advantage of her shock to kiss her. His taste and the feel of his mouth against her made her whole body warm, but it didn’t clear the confusion. What was he _doing_?

How could he think his plan would work, even if she agreed to it?

He drew back slightly, resting his forehead against hers. “I care about you, Annie. When you were in the crystal, I… visited you. I thought that if you ever got out in my lifetime we’d be able to figure things out. You’d help us—and you have. I was right about you. Maybe what we have isn’t love, not yet, but we could get there. I trust you. I care about you. Let me get to know you better.”

“You mean—a real marriage? A p-partnership?” Her guts clenched at the stutter. She was cool, detached. She had to be. It was the one thing that couldn’t be taken from her.

“Yes. For political reasons, but a marriage nonetheless.”

She drew back. “That’s not possible. Not for you. You’re a good person—”

He laughed humorlessly, placing his hands on either side of her. “You think putting Historia on the throne was a fight with no bloodshed? You think I haven’t killed people?”

Annie recoiled. No. That wasn’t who he was. Maybe, in an emergency—but he wouldn’t talk about it in this detached way.

“I’ve done worse,” he said. He wasn’t letting her back out; he was staring her down. “I’ve sacrificed others to further our cause. I’ve endangered innocents. The only difference between you and me is the people we fought against, and why.”

She pushed at his chest weakly, her heart hurting. Even if it was true, she didn’t want to hear it. He’d been her hope, her treasure. The bright-eyed boy with the big dreams.

“They deserved it,” she said. “Whatever they were doing, they—”

“Annie, please.”

Her hands caught on the straps of his gear. Her teeth gritted.

“We can do this right,” he said. “As right as we can. But you have to let go of that image you have of me.”

“I don’t understand why you’d throw in your lot with me,” she said, looking away.

“You’re not evil, Annie. You can help us. And… all the other stuff I said.”

He was drawing back, and suddenly she found that she didn’t want him to. Her hands tightened on the straps of his gear, stopping him. She met his eyes, one hand smoothing out against his chest, feeling the warmth of his skin under the white fabric of his shirt. He could be hers, or close to it. She wasn’t naïve enough to equate marriage with commitment, but marrying did say _something_.

It wasn’t what she wanted for him, but what she wanted for Armin Arlert was already out of reach. A happy childhood. For his dreams to stay bright. For him never to have to resort to violence or killing. If he thought she could help him and his cause by marrying him, she would. She would burn up to make his dreams come true.

“Okay,” she said. She reached up cautiously to brush aside his bangs, not sure if the gesture was allowed. Tenderness was foreign to her, and Armin had admitted that what they had wasn’t love—but he caught her hand and held it there, smiling.

“You won’t regret it,” he said. “I won’t let you.”

Her life was one regret after another, but she nodded.

A team. A partnership. His trust was a gift she didn’t deserve, but she’d make it count nonetheless.

 

* * *

 

 

Annie stepped into the dull courtyard, her eyes threatening to close at the bliss of fresh autumn air and natural light. Her legs trembled. There were two dozen guards watching her take these steps, waiting for her to shift and attack them, and she could hardly even walk.

“Are you okay?”

She looked at Armin beside her, the only one of the guards within her reach, and nodded.

It was the first of many such exercises, over a number of days. Under strict supervision, Annie wandered the small courtyard while people waited for her to get her shifting powers back. Whatever had been in her food wasn’t being put in anymore, and each evening when she did this there were more armaments on the roofs around the courtyard: the same netting machines that caught her in the forest. If she’d been trying to get out, she could have; she knew these lousy defenses couldn’t hold her.

But she wasn’t, and so it wasn’t worth considering.

From the pleasant landscaping and the quality of the architecture, all white pillars and gleaming stone, she knew she was in the capital. Not something that would have happened under the previous reign, that was for sure—but Historia had more guts at twenty than her predecessor ever did in his life.

Unfortunately, the slow return of her powers meant she was back to constant restraints and even more constant supervision, though this time she was held aboveground. Instead of Armin, she had a team of scientists asking her questions and doing tests around the clock. Annie didn’t know whether he was needed elsewhere or if he’d lost his visiting privileges when he’d made his intentions to marry her known a week ago, but losing his company hurt more than she expected. She even missed the uncomfortable knot of emotions she felt when she saw him.

“Why are you marrying Armin Arlert?” one of her watchers asked, a week in when small cuts on her body were beginning to heal in under two hours, signaling the near return of her powers.

What was the best answer? _Because I love him?_ It seemed wrong. Love was tangential to proving her loyalty, at least in Armin’s view.

“Because he asked me to.”

The watcher’s eyebrows rose. “Is he important to your cause?”

 _Your_ cause, he’d said. They still wanted her to correct their grammar, and when she failed to they rolled out a wash list of inane questions to test her loyalty.

“He’s not important to the shifter cause. He’s important to me.”

“And what is your cause?”

“To save humanity.” Ironically, the tagline hadn’t changed; her father thought he was saving humanity too.

“Why?”

“Because it’s his dream.”

“Whose?”

She sighed. Why were they all so tiresome? “Armin’s.”

 “So you’re a girl in love? That’s what you’re going with?”

“It’s not love,” Annie said. It was selfish, so it wasn’t love. She’d always believed that. “It’s… dedication.”

“Dedication, hm?” He was watching her carefully. She nodded, and he asked no more questions after that—for a while.

 

* * *

 

 

The smell of decay was thick around Annie where she stood in the center of the courtyard, leaves littering the ground around her. The paths hadn’t been swept for days, and the rain from the previous week had created marshy pools on the red-strewn lawns. Evening sunlight slanted across her face as she waited for the command to shift, arms tight at her sides.

They hadn’t given her any tools for this, and she was fairly sure the oversight was intentional. No clean, quick cut for her. She’d have to do it Eren’s way, and she _hated_ using her teeth.

Armin was in pride of place, near one of the doors back into the building with his arms folded resolutely. He was unarmed; the man and woman on either side of him were not. The threat was clear, though she wondered if they’d follow through on it. Would they really kill a powerful asset just to punish her?

She didn’t plan on finding out.

There were more familiar faces in the crowd, but Annie didn’t seek them out. She didn’t want to see which were present and which were not, any more than she wanted to see hatred in their eyes and posture. It was easier to look at the brown-haired commander standing a few meters in front of Armin, waiting.

The commander was looking up at the soldiers stationed on top of the buildings, making gestures. A thumbs-up ended each interaction, and finally the commander looked at Annie—and nodded.

Annie blew out a breath. She brought her hand up, thought of her purpose, and bit down.

The lurch of transformation hit. For a moment, there was nausea and pain and _heat_ , but then her perception shifted. She was her titan self once more, and it felt almost… good. In those first few seconds, she resented her chosen role as a dog on a leash—but then she looked down at Armin standing between the two guards below, and she forced her body to relax.  

The commander zipped up to her shoulder, causing her to slap a hand to the back of her neck reflexively. There was a sudden eruption of sound as soldiers got ready to attack—but the commander yelled for everyone to stand down. They did.

Next Annie was following orders, raising fingers, holding up one leg, the other. Nodding yes or shaking her head no to questions. She could feel the crowd relax as they watched, though none of the soldiers dropped their guard. The real surprise came when the commander told her to step over the nearest building and make her way to Sina.

She did as she was told, conscious of the commander’s weight on her shoulder. She kept one hand firmly over her weak spot.

“I won’t cut you, Annie,” the commander told her. “But you’re free to keep your hand there.”

For some reason, hearing the commander say her name made Annie lower the hand. There was power in names, and the use of them. An unbidden memory of Armin sighing hers made her steps jerky, and she wrestled the thought back down. She could remember a time when it was difficult to think much at all in titan form; that wasn’t a problem she had anymore.

She walked in the direction her passenger pointed until her steps led her to Sina, and on command she climbed the wall, the way she couldn’t five years ago. She stood at the top, looking out over humanity’s last corner of the world.

“Not going to run?” the commander asked. Annie shook her head. “Good. Didn’t think so.”

 

* * *

 

 

The day of the wedding, one of Annie’s guards brought in a powder blue dress Annie knew didn’t belong to her. A note was attached to the hanger:

 _I want to believe in you_ , it said, and it was signed _Historia._

It had to be from Christa, and Annie felt a small bud of warmth in her chest. The dress was nicer than anything she had—or used to have—but not nearly nice enough for anyone to suspect its royal origins. It was plain, with buttons all down the front, and long enough to fall almost to her ankles. Annie was glad it was plain; the court room was going to be full of people glaring her down. She’d rather not have them resenting her for her past relationship with Christa as well as all she’d done.

Her guards escorted her to the court building late that morning, and she wondered whether they planned to bring her right back to her room afterwards. A marriage in name only? Or would they trust Armin once a piece of paper was signed? Security had slackened since she shifted, but there were still people outside her door at all times, and they hadn’t let Armin in to see her—or he hadn’t tried to visit. She wished she knew which it was. A strange, insecure part of her expected to walk into the courtroom only to be told he wasn’t there and they were going to put her underground again.

But when she walked into the room and saw the witnesses on either side—nervous-looking people, angry-looking people, former friends with tentative hope on their faces—she knew this was no hoax. Armin stood between the filled wooden tribunes, in neat civilian clothing, at a small podium alongside an officiant.

She walked up to join him, trying to keep her face impassive. When he saw her, he smiled cautiously.

Her heart twisted. It was the smile he’d always had for her.

She took her place at his side, facing him. When she glanced over his shoulder, she saw Mikasa in the audience, the skin around her eyes tight. Annie had expected her to look angry—murderous—but seeing her worried was worse.

 _I won’t hurt him_ , she thought at her one-time companion. She couldn’t say it; she’d just have to prove it.

The words of the ceremony were short. To her surprise, there was a small section about her past crimes being forgiven in light of her changed allegiance. Armin didn’t look surprised—his idea, maybe, though she wondered how people had agreed to it.

Annie was feeling shaky by the time it came to the ring exchange, but Armin’s hands were steady as they slipped a metal band around her ring finger. Her eyes widened when she felt the familiar weight of it. It was hers: her shifter ring, dipped in some other coating to make it unrecognizable. If she twisted it, the pinprick blade would emerge.

Her breathing was shallow. She met Armin’s eyes cautiously, and he smiled just a little at her expression. _Are you stupid?_ she wanted to ask him. _What if someone finds out? What if I’m not trustworthy?_

But maybe it was for her own protection, in case their own people ambushed her before she had a chance to shift. If that happened, all Armin’s hard work would be for nothing. Annie convinced herself that was why he’d done it, because the alternative made her worry for his sanity.

Eventually, it was done. The papers were signed. The words had been spoken. Annie thought that was the end of it, but before she could walk away from the podium Armin tipped her face up with his fingers. He kissed her softly, on the mouth, and the crowd was quiet.

 _Not here_ , Annie wanted to say, but it was over before she could get her brain in working order. She saw the way he glanced around the room after, and she knew the kiss wasn’t for her.

It was for them.

 

* * *

 

 

Armin’s hand was warm around hers as he led her back in the direction of the complex where she’d been held. He didn’t bring her to the same complex, though. Instead she found herself approaching former Military Police headquarters—former because the order had been dissolved and taken over by the scouting legion, a casualty of the takeover.

“It’s just until they trust you,” Armin explained, when she saw her looking at the large building. “They want you somewhere surrounded by soldiers.”

She quailed at the thought of living inside of headquarters, but Armin stopped at a house on the way. She watched in confusion as he unlocked the door and held it open for her.

“Here?” she asked, stepping through.

“It’s watched,” he explained immediately, pointing up and around. “Used to belong to a member of the Military Police, I think. The legion’s not done distributing property, so for now it’s ours—the legion’s. Since I’ll be living in the capital during your first mission, they decided it was mine for the time being.”

He closed the door behind him, and she frowned. “It’s certain? They’re keeping you here?”

“Yeah.” He touched the worried line between her brows. “So come back, okay?”

She shivered at the gentle tone, embarrassed by what it did to her. It was so easy for him to warm her all the way up with a look or a touch, and she had no idea how to make him happy. It wasn’t fair.

Armin stepped away, heading further into the house. “Make yourself comfortable. Do you have anything you want to do in the eighteen hours we have together before you go free humanity?”

As if they’d let her fight straight off the bat—but she knew he was joking, and so she said nothing. She moved into the house, stepping through a different doorway than Armin had, one that led to a comfortable living room scattered with papers and books. She had a feeling Armin had been living here for the past few days already.

Annie walked up to the first book she saw, picking it up to read the front: _E. L. Molenkamp – Political Theory_. She brought it with her to the chair by the front window, curling up with it in her lap. That was how Armin found her ten minutes later, when he brought out a tray of food and tea. He smiled at the sight.

“See anything interesting?”

“I’m not through the introduction yet. It’s confusing.”

He nodded. “Since the takeover, we’ve gotten so much new information we can hardly get through it. It’s hard to piece everything together.”

She touched the notebook next to the chair. “You’re taking notes?”

“It’s what I’ll be doing, until you come back.”

“And after that?”

“I’m hoping they’ll let me back on the front lines.”

“Why?” Fighting wasn’t his specialty—it had been hard for him, in training. She knew he’d gotten better, but seeing this house—all his books—she could easily imagine him trawling through text instead of titans. It suited him, even if he’d gained height and muscle mass.

“It’s where I’m most needed. For mission planning, more so than fighting, but everyone fights. We still don’t have enough people.”

There was a feeling of satisfaction, knowing she’d pad the ranks for real this time. How many soldiers was she worth, in titan form? Ten? Twenty? But she wouldn’t be able to live up to her full potential until they trusted her. For the first time, she felt impatience—an echo of Eren’s manic purpose. She wanted to be out there, fighting. She could do more than most.

They ate together, talking quietly. Armin updated her on the situation more than he ever had before, his eyes bright as he explained his discoveries so far. To Annie’s ears it sounded like an impossibility—their world’s history, the way it worked before the titans—but Armin believed it, and so she did too. Warmth suffused her as she listened to him talk as if she was an ally, as if he was still the boy he’d been. Maybe he was.

“Are you afraid I won’t come back?” she asked, when he paused to drink something. He was quiet for a long time.

“Not in the way you mean,” he said at last. “I’m worried for your sake. Not all soldiers agree with the decisions we’ve made here.”

“I’ll be careful.”

He smiled. “I know.”

She fought the urge to blush, looking down at the ring around her finger with its new metal coating. It still didn’t seem real, that it meant something different now. She glanced at Armin’s hand and felt the same sense of disbelief at the sight of his ring. It was meant to connect him to her, but how could a ring do that? How could anything?

Was this part of Armin’s plan for them? Eating together? Talking? Would there be more nights like the one they spent together in her cell? She wished she knew what he expected of her so she could live up to it, but she didn’t feel like she could ask.

He followed her glance to his left hand, his fingers stretching as he examined it.

“It means whatever you want it to,” he said. She remembered the ceremony, where they’d promised to take care of each other and share what they each had—more of a business agreement than a love match, to her ears. She wondered if words about love had been left out intentionally.

She set the book in her lap aside and walked over to him. He looked up at her, his hands loose around his cup, allowing her to take it from him and set it on the coffee table. Then she looked down at him again, gathering her courage.

_Just touch him. You’re married. He said it could mean what you wanted it to._

Her hand came down on his shoulder, imagining straps that weren’t there. Did he feel naked without them? She used to.

Armin’s hand covered hers. He looked like he was about to say something, but he swallowed his words when she set her knee down on the couch next to him, then the other on the other side of him. She flattened her hands against his chest, feeling the rapid thump-thump of his heart under her right palm as she lowered herself. Then she waited.

His pupils dilated, and his breathing became shallow. Hers was, too.

“Can I be… close? Like this?”

He nodded, brushing her hair back behind her ear with a small smile. “Of course.”

She fisted her hands in his shirt and hid her face in his neck, relieved. There was still a part of her worried that she disgusted him, that his acceptance was another act—but if he could look up at her and tuck her hair back with a smile, maybe that wasn’t the case.

“Um, Annie—”

“Hm?”

“I’m not… immune, you know. To you.”

She sat up. “In what way?”

“I… think it’s better if we do this slowly. And it’s hard to think when you’re…” He gestured at his lap helplessly.

For a moment she was confused, then she realized what he was saying: no sex, for the time being. Her body objected to that idea. It didn’t know anything beyond _now_ and _soon_ —but she did. This wasn’t the same as when he’d come to her at night, in the dark. They were building something long term, maybe.

“Okay,” she said, sliding off and laying her legs over his lap. Then, just to be sure: “You mean no sex, right?”

A jerky nod answered her question.

“But I can kiss you?”

He smiled. “Hmm… what about… one kiss for every one of my questions you answer?”

“ _More_ questions?” He couldn’t possibly have more. She’d told them everything.

“Yes. I have a lot.”

If she was a lesser woman, she would have quailed. Instead she leveled him with a flat stare.

He slid his finger along her jawline, tipped her chin up.

“What was your favorite story, growing up?”

 _Oh_ , she thought. Those kinds of questions.

 

 

The prophecy described the after-world as a place of beauty, harmony, kindness. She’d given up on the after-world during those long nights in her cell, had decided to live in this one, but even in her corrupt, festering world there was happiness.

There was happiness in the questions Armin asked, the stories he drew out of her—the stories he gave her in return, when she insisted—and there was happiness in the wet warmth of his mouth against hers, the rough slide of his fingers over her skin. It was torture, too, but it was the sweetest kind of torture: an insistent longing, making her whole body feel flushed. Anticipation thrummed through her each time he forgot to ask more questions, each time she saw him come close to abandoning his resolution to take things slow, but they always drew apart eventually, a regretful look on Armin’s face.

She found she could make him laugh easily, simply by being honest. It was addicting; his laugh was just as good as his kisses. The night passed this way, ending when they dropped off to sleep mid-conversation, and in the morning it was time for Annie to leave.

When the soldiers came to pick her up, she was ready. She was determined to do her job well, to pass whatever obstacles they laid out for her with flying colors.

She had so much to come back to.

 

* * *

 

 

Annie’s titan flesh steamed around her, power coursing through her as she fought. This could hardly even be classed as an expedition—an experiment, at most—but the titans didn’t know that. They blundered towards the columns of scouting legion riders and their shifter vanguard heedlessly, unaware that Annie was the main event here.

If she fell—if she was overpowered—it was likely she would die. There was no 3D maneuver gear for a quick getaway. They didn’t trust her with it, and she didn’t bother telling them that she could carry off a soldier and steal theirs if she so chose. It occurred to her, not for the first time, that all actions taken against her were only ever effective because she had already decided to fight for them.

Perhaps Eren could stop her, though. His large, clumsy-looking titan ran behind her, though he frequently lost sight of her when approaching titans distracted him. It was just like Eren to go for the obvious threat, and there was something relaxing in watching his fists slam through titans’ necks, his feet trampling them underground like a sadistic child stepping on bugs.

Annie’s own movements conserved energy: a hardened fist breaking through a titan’s spinal column, an easy grab for the neck, ripping into the weak spot. She ran at a leisurely pace, and bit by bit the soldiers she protected seemed to relax. It was her first shifter mission, and—if she was lucky—her final test.

The soldiers each had a canister of white signal flares for if she betrayed them. She wondered how many soldiers watched the sky anxiously for a white flare, whether they were starting to drop their guard.

Trees cast in the orange and red of autumn beckoned in the distance. Not long now until they found shelter within them, and then—something. Annie wasn’t quite sure.

A black signal from one of the other groups sent Annie and Eren running in the direction of the flare. The cause of it intercepted them before they could reach the group it had come from, and for a moment Annie was scared it would be Reiner or Bertholdt—but it was simply a dumb-looking aberrant that was ignoring the riders. She glanced at Eren, and saw he’d increased his pace. _Idiot_. He wasted so much energy. Hadn’t he been taught by now to fight like a proper soldier, even in titan form?

But then, Eren’s strength was his ruthlessness, as much as she relied on cold calculation. He could be trained to fight more effectively, but she wasn’t sure he could ever be trained to hold back. She let him take down the aberrant, but ran forward when that aberrant rolled and threw Eren. It jumped down on top of him, seemingly headed for his weak spot, and before Annie had quite decided what to do she was biting down on the back of the titan’s neck, taking a chunk out of it.

She spluttered, steaming flesh falling from her lips. _Gross_. She never used teeth. She should have dropped the titan, brought him down in some other way—but the danger to Eren made her panic.

Eren’s titan got up and looked at her, at the way she rubbed an arm over her tongue and spat one last time. His big, dumb head inclined just a bit, making him look like an oversized toddler with a sixpack. She broke eye contact and ran back to the center of the formation, trying to put the image from her mind. How much could Eren even think while he was in his titan form? Everything he did seemed intuitive—the way her actions had been when she first learned to shift.

They reached the cover of trees, and when they were in the thick of the forest with the titans held up at the edges, the commander signaled for Annie to shift back. She did so, cautiously.

She’d expected some tacit approval from the troops, maybe, but what happened next was way beyond that. The commander clambered over her disintegrating titan flesh and threw an arm around Annie, grinning brightly.

“Did you see that?” the brown-haired lunatic shouted. “No losses! Our very own titan vanguard. I could get used to this.”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” a man said, annoyed. “She may be waiting for a better moment to betray us.”

“Don’t be that way. Imagine it—with the two of them, we might be able to get to the basement _without_ the supply route. This could move our end goal up months, even years—”

“Hanji! There’s no way that will work.”

“He’s right,” Annie said, moving the commander’s arm off her. “There’s a good chance the other shifters are waiting for you there. They know you want to get into that basement; they may mean to ambush you there.”

“Could they have destroyed whatever’s in there?” the commander asked.

“I… maybe.” Annie imagined herself in Reiner and Bertl’s shoes. Even wanting to bring on the new world, she didn’t think they could bring themselves to destroy whatever was in that basement. Maybe it wasn’t their hope, but it was someone’s, and her companions held hope in high regard. “I don’t think so.”

“Hm,” the annoyed-looking man said. “I guess we’ll see.”

Hanji seemed interested in continuing the conversation, but Eren was walking over, his own titan flesh discarded behind him. Hers was gone already.

“Annie,” he said. It was the first time he’d talked directly to her, and once again Annie noted the changes in him—and what hadn’t changed. Though he was taller and stronger, with sharper features, his face held the same steady determination as before. She could still remember the young boy looking up at her from the tunnel, begging for her to deny the allegations. Was he relieved, now that she was on his side?

Hanji and the other man walked off, leaving Annie alone. Eren walked up to her—and the next moment she was reeling, clutching at the pain that blossomed in her jaw. He’d punched her, hard, and no one was doing anything.

She lowered her hands and faced him again, waiting. She kept her expression blank.

“That’s for—everything,” Eren said.

She nodded.

“You’ll be training with me. I don’t want to be thinking of all the people you killed.”

She nodded again. “I understand.”

“Armin trusts you.”

This time, she didn’t nod—because what he said was _Armin trusts you_ but what it meant was _I trust you_ and she wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He was the coordinate: the shifters’ hope. She could trick him, use his trust to make the prophecy come true, come home a hero. Reiner would be happy, and Bertl. They deserved happiness; she realized that now.

But so did she, and it was not the promised after-world that could give it to her.

 

* * *

 

 

Soldiers no longer flinched when she walked by. They didn’t gnash their teeth at her in the mess hall or talk loudly about her when they knew she was listening. Her training sessions with Eren were well-attended—one of the few forms of entertainment around basecamp—and on the next expedition, the commander gave her a set of 3D maneuver gear to use.

The weight around her hips felt right; the pull of the straps felt right. When she saw her reflection in the mirror, a soldier looked back at her.

There was satisfaction in earning her place—a real place—but the gold band around her finger reminded her of Armin, still working hard in the capital, still depending on her loyalty. She couldn’t help wondering if this was what he’d had in mind all along: her, trusted among the soldiers and working for the cause; him, doing his own thing far away.

He did send her letters, at least. Every week. Her heart lifted when she read them, and his knowledge of what was going on on her end made it clear he was tracking her progress. She wondered who wrote to him. Eren? Hanji? She didn’t. Hanji had given her paper, but each time Annie sat down to write a letter her mind went blank.

Armin’s letters were conversational. He wrote about his research, events in the capital, what he’d done that day. He even included her, somehow, in his daily life. Things like: _I think you’d like this book_ and _I could imagine you staring so-and-so down_ —sentiments that showed he thought of her. But he never wrote _I’ll visit you_ or _you can come back soon_ and there was certainly no talk of feelings. Though she didn’t admit it to herself, she wanted an _I miss you_ from him, because it was the only thing she could think to write—and since she couldn’t write it herself, all the letters she attempted read like mission reports. She didn’t send them.

Training filled up her time, anyway, along with other activities. Somehow, she had been put in charge of teaching a refresher course on hand-to-hand combat because of her extensive knowledge on the subject. She was going to ask why they needed to know hand-to-hand combat when she remembered Armin’s words about the takeover:

Titans weren’t the only enemy. Perhaps that was still true.

She didn’t argue the assignment, and taught to the best of her abilities, even as the late autumn chill and rain turned the training fields outside the basecamp castle to slush on warm days and frozen mud on cold days. It was on one of the cold, bright days more than a month past her arrival in basecamp that she saw a familiar figure detach itself from the castle wall after one of her lessons, once she was alone and preparing to leave.

She stopped short, the basket of training equipment coming to hang loosely in her hands as her arms went slack. Why was he here? Why hadn’t he told her? Sweat lay sticky on her skin, itchy beneath her uniform.

“That was impressive,” Armin said, when he was near enough to talk. His hair was in a half ponytail, and he wore his standard uniform. Everything about him was the same, and yet the sight of him took her breath away. Maybe it was the fact that she’d staked so much on him and had so looked forward to being reunited. She’d forgotten what it was like to have the real-life version of him in front of her: terrifying. Because she wanted things from him, and maybe he wasn’t willing to give them to her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. Wind buffeted her back, trying to blow her over. She held fast.

“They decided you were trustworthy.”

“You didn’t say you were coming.”

“I didn’t know for sure, and then when I did a letter would have gotten here at the same time I did. Hello, by the way.”

She flushed. “Hi.”

He folded his arms. “You didn’t write.”

“I did.” When his eyebrows rose, she added: “I didn’t send.”

His expression was thoughtful for a moment, then he smiled. “Let’s go inside,” he said. “I think food’s ready, and you must be hungry after your lesson. I like watching you teach, by the way. You look like an angry general.”

“I’m not angry. That’s just the way my face looks.”

Surprise caught his features, and a moment later he stifled a laugh with his hand, glancing at her. What was so funny? She wasn’t sure, but somehow his amusement spread to her, and she found herself smiling, too. She hefted the basket with renewed vigor, feeling very light.

 

* * *

 

 

They ate with the other soldiers, and Annie was surprised that Armin sat with her at the table. It was clear Mikasa and Eren wanted him to themselves, but he refused to shut her out of the conversation even when she glared at him, wishing he’d stop trying to involve her. In fact, she almost wished he’d sit somewhere else; she didn’t need him to look up every few minutes to see if she was okay, if she was listening, if she had something to say. It was clear he was trying to be polite, and that kind of forced politeness annoyed her.

 _Just spend time with your friends_ , she wanted to say, but it would sound sour, and if it wasn’t for his small, worried glances she would have enjoyed listening to him. She didn’t need to feel involved—just having him here made her feel warmer, despite the draftiness of the mess hall.

After dinner, Eren and Mikasa invited Armin to catch up some more elsewhere, but Armin declined. He pleaded tiredness and sent them on their way—but when Annie attempted to sidle away, respecting his wishes, he grabbed her hand.

“Annie,” he said. “Spend the evening with me?”

Her face flushed red. “I…”

“You have plans? Or you want to be alone?”

“Your friends…”

“…haven’t spent the last five years unconscious only to be thrown back into battle the moment they come back. I think they can wait.”

Annie swallowed. So he wanted to make sure she was all right? She could live with that, she supposed, so she gave a tight nod. He let go, relieved. She led him to her room on the first floor, where many of the higher-ups had their rooms, and he followed her in, closing the door behind him. His eyes went immediately to the bars at the high window: the shutters were open, and the sky outside was slowly turning orange.

“That’s just the old architecture,” Annie assured him, seeing the way his lips tightened at the sight of the bars. “Everything here is old-fashioned. No showers, either. Too bad the military police are gone, or I could have joined them again and lived in luxury. So, um, welcome.”

“I was in here earlier,” he said, pointing at an unfamiliar set of saddlebags by the bed. It made Annie’s whole body feel jittery when she saw it there. He was staying with her? The bed was large for just one person—maybe this had been the intention all along, for him to join her here. Suddenly she was aware of the sweat that had dried on her body, and the fact that she hadn’t washed her hair in over a week.

“You should have warned me you were coming,” she said, frowning at the moth-eaten rug on the floor. She would have washed her hair, at least.

“Do you… not want me here?” There was vulnerability in his voice.

She glared. “Of course I want you here. I just haven’t—”

“Of course?” His grin made her stomach bottom out. He looked like he’d caught her at something, and it made it impossible to say more.

“You tricked me into saying that,” she said. “On purpose.” She wasn’t sure if she was awed or annoyed—he had sounded so sincere.

“I can’t help it,” he said. His hands came up to hold her face, tipping it up to look at him. “I missed you.”

Warmth suffused her at his words, but she didn’t show it. She avoided his eyes, keeping her eyebrows lowered. “What’s there to miss?”

“Lots of things.” He leaned in as if to kiss her, and she leaned back.

“I haven’t washed my hair,” she said quickly, before he could get the wrong idea.

He glanced at it. “You want me to do it for you? Will that make you feel better?”

“I’m not letting you wash me,” she said, her face flushing at the image of Armin running a sponge over her naked body. She didn’t mind people seeing her naked, usually, but it was different with Armin. She didn’t want clinical detachment from him.

“Just your hair,” he said. “Let me, please? And we can catch up. I told you I wanted to spend the evening together.”

He was doing it again, the intentionally-vulnerable thing—but she was helpless to stop him, and soon Armin had brought a pail of lukewarm water to their room while she fetched towels. What was she _doing_?

They sat down on opposite sides of the bucket, and with great coaxing Armin convinced her to lean forward so the top of her head was in the lukewarm water. His hands worked through her hair, wetting all of it, and she felt like dousing her whole, flushed face in the stupid bucket. She was putty in his hands when it came down to it.

“Up,” he said, and then came the soaping up, wet drips collecting on the towel around her shoulders. He kneeled behind her, his fingertips working into her scalp until she was nearly groaning with pleasure. How long had it been since she’d been touched like this?

“You said we’d catch up,” she said, when she realized he’d been silent this whole time.

“Mm. So I did.”

Her mouth was slack with relaxation, her shoulders loose. She couldn’t pursue the matter further.

“Do you want me to—?” she asked, when he seemed ready to dunk her again.

“Not unless I stink.”

She smelled horse on him, alongside traildust and the musky scent of his own sweat, but it was a comforting smell, making warmth curl in her lower abdomen: comforting and compelling at the same time. “You don’t. I’ll repay the favor some other time.”

“Oh? It’s a favor now? Rinse, by the way.”

She glared, though he couldn’t see it as she bent back over the bucket. “You know this is nice.”

“I don’t always know with you, Annie. I don’t even know if you like being touched.”

His fingers were firm against her skull, efficient even as they made tingles run down Annie’s spine. “How could you doubt that?” she asked, thinking of their night together in her cell.

“It’s… different, isn’t it? We always seem to go straight to sex. It’s different from just touching.”

 “Did I miss something when I fell asleep before I left last month?” Annie asked. “I don’t remember having sex that night—”

He laughed. “Because we stopped ourselves.”

 _Because you stopped us_ , Annie thought, but she understood what he meant. Each attempt at cuddling had turned into something else: held breath, a hand at the hem of a shirt, mouths seeking skin, the hard press of him against her. Images and feelings from that night had featured heavily in her fantasies.

“I enjoy it whenever you touch me,” she said. He finished rinsing her hair, and she rose up some so he could squeeze it out before toweling it dry. When she met his eyes, she saw there was color in his cheeks. It seemed impossible that she could do anything to him, draw out any emotion in him, and yet here he was, looking at her like she was special.

“Brush?” he asked, a little thickly. She fetched it for him, and though she protested—again—they ended up on the edge of the bed, Armin sitting behind her as he worked the tangles out of her hair. She was lulled into a state of relaxation once more, which ended abruptly when he drew aside her wet hair and placed a kiss on the back of her neck.

She gasped, shivers running through her. “Armin?”

“Mm?”

Annie turned to face him, making him back up onto the bed. They both had all their gear on, save the jackets, and for once she didn’t want to leisurely undo all the belts, enjoying every minute—instead, she wanted them gone immediately.

Which wasn’t going to happen.

She undid the strap across his chest, watching his face carefully. He watched her do it without protest, and so she worked loose the right belt, sliding it off his shoulder slowly before doing the same to the other.

The back brace fell softly against the covers. Armin drew her in, and she put her legs on either side of him so their bodies could press together unhindered. His mouth caught hers, his hands coming up to cup her face. She bunched her hands in his shirt as the kiss deepened.

“I missed you,” she said, when they came up for air.

“You should have written,” he said into her neck, making heat blossom between her legs. “I was worried about you.”

“I told you I’d be careful.”

“Not _that_ kind of worried.” He pressed a kiss to her temple, and started to loosen the strap across her chest. Her heart beat a rapid tattoo beneath his fingers. “You’re too hard on yourself, Annie. You’re on our side now. You have a right to be here.”

She watched his hands, desire making her throat ache. Was this going where she thought it was going?

“Annie?”

“What?” she said, nearly jumping. Armin was looking at her carefully, and she tried to remember what he’d said. “I… don’t feel that out of place here.”

“Have you made friends?”

She shook her head mutely.

“And you don’t mind being alone?”

His intent stare made her look away. “No,” she said. Then, trying to keep accusation out of her tone: “I didn’t think you did, either.”

“I don’t,” he confirmed. “But it’s better when it’s by choice, isn’t it?”

Annie shrugged. She was used to living in her own head, regarding others with suspicion. “Maybe. It’s… easier not to get attached.”

Armin ran a thumb over her bottom lip, up to her cheek: a sweep in the shape of a smile. “Is that what you are? Not attached?”

“It’s what I wish I was, sometimes.”

“I already told you. I won’t let you regret—”

She caught his hand. “You’re here, aren’t you? And probably going on the next expedition?”

“I’m a veteran now. We need all the experienced scouts we can get—”

“So you’re going, and we both know the risks we take when we go. Don’t tell me I won’t regret it.”

He flexed his hand, held tightly in her grip. She was hurting him, she realized, and dropped the hand abruptly.

“Fine, I won’t tell you that,” he said. His hands slipped through her wet hair, wrists moving to twist the yellow strands around his fingers. “But I’ll tell you we’re better off now than we ever have been. We have more information, more recruits, more supplies than ever. Yes, things are still a mess, but for the first time in a long time our situation is favorable. I’ll take what I can get, when it comes to hope.”

The pull on her hair tilted her head back, exposing her neck, and Armin made use of it, setting his lips against the side of her throat where the barest contact made her shiver. He seemed to be asking her for something without words, but she wasn’t sure what. To bear his hope? To agree?

His mouth was teasing, his kisses too light to satisfy. She pressed into him, eyes closing.

“Mm, no good,” he said. His hands moved to hold her face, forcing her to look at him. He met her gaze steadily, a smile on his face. “I want your eyes open this time.”

 _This time_. Anticipation lanced through her. She shrugged the loosened gear off her shoulders and knocked Armin back against the bed, her mouth on his, her hands on his arms, keeping him down.

“Uh, Annie?”

She kissed him fiercely, with all the force she’d dreamt of using the next time she saw him. It felt painfully good to have him beneath her, his mouth opening to allow her more access. Her nails raked his biceps through the shirt, impatient to touch all of him.

“Annie,” he gasped, when she broke the kiss for a short moment.

“ _What?_ ” Her voice was a hiss.

“I’m not going to run. Let me touch you.”

She looked at her hands pinning his arms down against the bed, then at his face: his hair fanned out around his head, eyes steady even with the pupils blown wide. The urge to keep pushing him down was strong—he looked good like that, beneath her—but she eased her grip. The next moment she was dislodged, stomach lurching as she fell against the bed, Armin’s weight suddenly on top of her.

“Hey!” she yelled.

“Shhh,” he said into her neck. Her legs trembled at his low tone. “Don’t want anyone to hear.”

Then he was tugging at her hoodie, and her back rose up almost against her will, rushing to accommodate him. _Traitorous body_ , she thought as he pulled off her top garment so only a flimsy white shift covered her top half. There was a traitorous pulse of pleasure between her legs, too, when Armin’s hands felt her breasts through the shirt, his eyes heavy-lidded with desire. She reached up and locked her hands behind his neck, pulling herself up to kiss him.

“Ah—” he said, unhooking her hands gently. “I’m not done. I have to see you before the sun goes down, you know.”

“What happened to going slow?” she groaned. He slid down her body to take off the bottom half of the gear, starting at the feet. They’d taken their boots off earlier.

He looked up from his task to meet her hot gaze. “You want to go slow?”

 _No way._ “ _You_ wanted to, didn’t you?”

“I wanted to start something with you, the right way. But… I want this, too. Is that bad?”

He sounded sincere, though there was no way of telling with Armin. “You mean you thought of me?” she asked, unable to resist. “While we were apart?”

He smiled, his finger tracing her ankle. “A lot.”

She shot up, her hands moving to work on the buttons of his shirt. “Well, you’re not the only one. I want to see you, too.”

He released a strap. “Sounds fair.”

Their motions became frenzied after that, each of them trying to make sure the other would be unclothed before the sun had fully descended. Annie ripped off a button of Armin’s shirt, and Annie’s gear got tangled. Neither one of them cared, because minutes later they were looking at each other, faces flushed, not a stitch on either of them. Annie’s breath left her.

He was beautiful, scars and all, callused skin and all. She wanted to call the sun back up, to shine on him fully, but she knew it was hopeless. Armin seemed equally entranced. He ran his hand down her side, over the curve of her hip. He was on top again, having wrestled her down when she pulled ahead in the race to get gear and clothes off before the sun went down, and his eyes seemed to leave warmth wherever they alighted. Her own gaze was pulled down towards his erection, remembering the silky feel of it in her hands.

She flipped them, wanting to see him with his hair fanned out around him once more. He didn’t protest, this time, and she thought that perhaps the battle for dominance hadn’t really been a battle at all. He seemed perfectly happy like this, with her straddling him. She slid her hands down his chest, savoring the feel of him, her palms moving slowly down his abdominals to the hard length of him. He sucked in a breath when she curled her fingers around his erection, and one of his arms came up to cover his face.

“It’s embarrassing when you look at it like that.”

 _Embarrassing?_ How could he even think that? Did he know what it did to her? She moved down his body, the way he had. She pressed a kiss to his pec, his ab, his hipbone, descending. His back arched when her breast touched his erection, and he made a choked noise.

No wonder he had enjoyed being in control of her that night, when he made her come around his fingers. This kind of power was addicting. She pressed a kiss to the trail of hair that led downward, the way he had that night, then the tip of his cock. He groaned.

“D—don’t. You don’t know how, right?”

She’d filched a dirty book from one of the soldiers, but when it came down to it she didn’t know. It made her no less eager to try: she wanted to make him keen under her, the way she had under his mouth, his touch. She licked a stripe up the underside of his cock before tonguing the slit and sucking a little—experimentally. There was no distinct taste—a little salty, maybe.

She let her spit wet the tip, wrapping her lips over and moving her mouth down. She didn’t think he’d want her teeth on his sensitive skin, so she kept her lips tight in order not to graze him. His hips bucked upward, and she drew back, something akin to a smirk beginning to pull at her lips. She liked this.

“Annie. You have ten seconds to stop or I’m flipping us over and holding you down.”

“Why? Why are you embarrassed?”

“I’m not _embarrassed_. I want this, but—not now.”

She glared, moving back up his body after one last caress. “And you listened to my protests _so well_ that night.”

“Were you arguing? I don’t remember.”

He had a point. She hadn’t managed to vocalize any of her protests, but she was convinced he’d known. She reached for his face, trailing her fingers down his jaw to his collar. “Now what am I going to do with you?”

He shivered, whether in cold or anticipation she wasn’t sure. The shutters were open, but she still felt flushed. She leaned down over him, alternating kisses and bites, until his fingers were digging into her hips, his back arching. She inched up so she was over his erection and rolled her hips, the way she had before. By the fading light of dusk, she saw Armin throw his head back, exposing his throat.

Her mouth went dry at the sight, and vaguely she wondered why an act like that did something for her. It went straight to the growing arousal between her legs, making her press against him again for contact, her wetness coating him. He pulled her tight against him, seeming keen to maneuver her beneath him.

She sat up, stopping him. “No. I’m in control this time.”

He brushed his fingers across her collarbones. “Okay.”

It sent another lance of pleasure through her, and suddenly she was impatient to have him inside of her, surging up to meet her. She sat up, and her fingers closed around his erection. She positioned it carefully and sank down, rolling her hips as she descended. A small sound escaped Armin.

“Shhh,” she said, leaning forward. He was nearly all the way in, and she rolled her hips again. He hissed through his teeth. “We don’t want anyone hearing.”

His hand caught the back of her head, pulling her down roughly. He bucked his hips, pushing her so her mouth met his. His kiss was rough, uncoordinated. It made her pound down against him, moving her hips in small, frantic movements.

They found their rhythm eventually, though Annie stayed breathless. She loved the feeling of him rising to meet her, her own hard motions against him, the way his hands explored her body when she sat up to catch her breath in between kisses. She ground against his pubic bone, feeling the familiar pressure build.

His movements were losing the smooth control he’d found after they first started, his hands finding her hips again to hold her down against him while he thrust. She wouldn’t have it; she entwined her fingers with his and pinned his hands against the mattress on either side of his head so she could work towards her own pleasure, savoring his gasps of breath. Her legs ached, but the promise of release made her ignore it. She leaned down to kiss Armin, and he raised his head to meet her desperately, their lips catching.

Her whole body went light. She kept up her small, fraught movements through the short period of weightlessness, and her release crashed over her a moment later. She gasped her pleasure into Armin’s mouth, fighting for the continued sensation, then against the sudden desire to lie boneless on top of him. It was time to draw his release from him, too, and from the way he sounded it wasn’t far off.

She changed her motions, coming down onto him in great, cresting movements, and he rose up to meet her. The aftershock of her own orgasm was still pulsing through her, and she tightened around him as she came down. Three, four, five—he gasped out a breath, his hips shuddering up into her, and she rode him out, trying not to feel too triumphant at the way his strong motions had been reduced to helpless stutters.

She released his hands, and his arms wrapped around her. His breathing was heavy. She let her cheek rest against his chest, savoring the rapid beat of his heart.

“Armin?” she said, after a long silence.

“Hm?”

“You mean it, right? You care about me.”

He brushed back her damp hair, kissed her forehead. “Yes. I think I might even be in love with you.”

She laughed, and he laughed softly with her: at the absurdity, she thought, with their bodies still pressed together, absolutely spent. The ache in her legs distracted her eventually, and with great care she moved off him, collapsing next to him instead. Her hips were sore.

Another silence, then: “Annie?”

“Yes?”

“Watch the sunrise with me tomorrow.”

She didn’t want to leave this bed, ever, not even to close the shutters, but the nights were long this time of year. Plenty of time before the sunrise. “Okay.”

 

* * *

 

 

Armin dragged her out of bed, just as he’d threatened, and what felt like moments later Annie was standing on the battlements with him, chilled by the biting autumn wind. The sky was lightening over the plains and the town in the distance. To the west, behind them, Wall Rose stood in darkness, an endless-seeming monolith. She shivered, and Armin pulled her in close. The survey cloaks did little for warmth this time of year.

They didn’t have long to wait. The clouds were tinged pink and orange, beams of light falling across them, and the sun appeared within minutes. It hurt to look at, and so Annie looked at Armin instead.

“Happy?” she asked, still pretending to be resentful about being dragged from bed.

“Yes.”

She watched his hair blow out behind him, and the smile he had for her. _I love you_ , she thought for the nth time. She couldn’t say it yet. She didn’t have to say it—but she wanted to, one day. Maybe before the next expedition.

“You?” he asked, after a long moment. He didn’t mean it in the flippant way she had.

“I… don’t know.” In her experience, happiness was fleeting. Maybe she was happy now, but what about tomorrow? The next day? What happened after the next expedition, and what happened if—against all odds—their side won? What happened when she was no longer useful?

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “It’s okay. You can take your time.”

“I’d rather take yours.”

He grinned, and pulled her into an embrace. She could no longer see the new sunlight slanting across his lashes, but she didn’t have to. She could still see it in her mind’s eye, where she kept all memories of him. How many more could she gather? How much time did she have?

“Okay,” he said. His hand was gentle against the back of her head, stroking her hair. “I’ll let you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END
> 
> if you would like to befriend/follow me on tumblr, my username is the same as here -- mysecretfanmoments . tumblr . com. Say hi!


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